GOVENDE 


THE  LIBRARY 

OF 

THE  UNIVERSITY 

OF  CALIFORNIA 

LOS  ANGELES 

GIFT  OF 


KRS.    BEATRICE 


SAWDAY 


Digitized  by  the  Internet  Archive 

in  2007  with  funding  from 

IVIicrosoft  Corporation 


http://www.archive.org/details/brokeofcovendenOOsnaiiala 


BROKE   OF    COVENDEN 


BROKE  of  COVENDEN 


BY 


J.  C.  SNAITH 

Author  of  ^'-  Mistress  Dorothy  Marvin"  *-*- Jraminta,' 
'-^Fortune"  ^^Mrs.  Fitz"  etc. 


SIXTH    EDITION 


BOSTON 

SMALL,  MAYNARD    AND    COMPANY 

1911 


TO 

s.  c 


691321 


CONTENTS 


PAGB 


CHAPTER    I 
Presents  an  English  Gentleman  in  the  Bosom  op  his 
Family      ........ 


CHAPTER    II 
A  Matrimonial  Martyr  on  the  Tragic  Themb  .         • 

CHAPTER    III 
Which  the  Judicious  are  exhorted  to  Skip    .         , 

CHAPTER    IV 
Lord  Chesterfield  to  his  Son        .         .         .         , 

CHAPTER    V 
A  Private  View  of  the  Feudal  Spirit  ,         . 

CHAPTER    VI 
Foreshadows  the  Need  for  a  Hero  and  a  Heroine 


CHAPTER    VII 


Le  NoUVEAU  REGIME 


CHAPTER    VIII 
Enter  the  True  Prince  in  the  Guise  of  a  Dustman 

CHAPTER    IX 
Startling  Development  of  the  Heroine. 

CHAPTER    X 
Tact  :  with  Sidelights  on  the  Sovereign  Quality 

CHAPTER    XI 
In  the  Temple  of  Diana  .... 

5 


26 
40 

Sa 
63 

75 

88 

103 

"5 

127 

139 


CONTENTS 

CHAPTER  XII  PAGB 

Maud  Waylino ,         ,     146 

CHAPTER    XIII 
Affords  the  Spectacle  of  a  Woman  of  the  World  coping 

WITH  Difficulties  .....     165 

CHAPTER    XIV 
In  which  a  Bomb  is  deposited  right  in  the  Middle  of  our 

Harmonious  Narrative     ......     178 

CHAPTER    XV 
L'Egoisme  k  Deux  ........     i8j 

CHAPTER    XVI 
The  Nobleman  out  of  the  Novelette      .  .         .         .     199 

CHAPTER    XVII 
An  Excursion  into  Sentiment         .....     212 

CHAPTER    XVIII 
A    Short  Excursus  ;    and    a  Conversation    apropos    of 

Nothing    .........     224 

CHAPTER    XIX 
Two  ON  A  Tower      .  .  ....     239 

CHAPTER    XX  . 
Preparations  for  Comedy       .......    255 

CHAPTER    XXI 
In  which  our  First  Comedian  makes  his  Bow  before  an 

appreciative  Audience  ....    262 

CHAPTER    XXII 
The  Jumping  of  the  Lesser  Wits  ....    277 

CHAPTER    XXIII 
A  Descent  into  the  Avernus  of  Broad  Farcb  .         ,         ,    287 

CHAPTER    XXIV 
In  which  Mr.  Burchell  cries  "  Fudge  I ''  .  .  .     303 

6 


CONTENTS 

CHAPTER    XXV  page 

Iphigenia         .         ...  .         .         .         .     318 

CHAPTER    XXVI 
In  which  Two  Matrimonial  Richmonds  take  the  Field   .     326 

CHAPTER    XXVII 

Opportunities  for  a  little  Moral  Teaching    .         .         .     344 

CHAPTER    XXViil 
Pariah  in  the  Name  of  Love    .  ....     353 

CHAPTER    XXIX 
Two  Women  .  ....     366 


CHAPTER    XXX 
In  the  Maelstrom 


373 


CHAPTER    XXXI 

In  which  our  Hero  takes  down  his  Battle-axb       .         .     381 

CHAPTER    XXXII 
Rencounter  between  a  Dogcart  and  an  Omnibus        .     394 

CHAPTER    XXXITI 
Tribulations  of  a  middle-aged   Peer  at  the  Hands  of 

Woman      .  .  ...     398 

CHAPTER    XXXIV 
Providential  Behaviour  of  old  Pearcb  ....    412 

CHAPTER    XXXV 
In  which  we  find  oub  First  Comedian  once  more  in  a 

Happy  Vein  ....    427 

CHAPTER    XXXVI 
Enter  a  Messenger  from  the  Courts  of  Hymem     .  .    435 

CHAPTER    XXXVII 
The  Lady  Bosket  at  Home  .....    446 

7 


CONTENTS 

CHAPTER    XXXVIII  pagh 

In  which  Mr.  Breffit  thb  Younger  puts  a  Hyphen  to  his 

Name  ...     462 

CHAPTER    XXXIX 

The  Last  Night      .  ....     477 

I 

CHAPTER    XL 

In  which  Mr.  Breffit  the  Elder  writes  off  another  Little 

Item  of  his  Account  .         .         .         .     ^83 


CHAPTER    XLI 

RiEN  n'est  Sacr£  pour  UN  Sapeur 

CHAPTER    XLII 
Barbed  Wire. 


494 


Soa 


CHAPTER    XLIII 
Ad  gloriam  Dei  et  in  Memoriam  Brokeae.         .         .         .     S22 

CHAPTER    XLIV 
Mother  and  Daughter  ....     527 

CHAPTER    XLV 
A  Short  Essay  in  Anticlimax  ....    54* 

CHAPTER    XLVI 
The  Last  Battle  ....     549 

CHAPTER    XLVII 
At  the  Cottage  on  the  Hill     ......     562 

CHAPTER    XLVIII 
The  Two  Voices      ........    571 

CHAPTER    XLIX 
The  Survival  of  the  Fittest  :  the  Curtain  falls    .         .     575 


CHAPTER  I 

Presents  an  English  Gentleman  in  the  Bosom 
of  his  Family 

MR.  BROKE  of  Covenden  had  for  the  enlightenment 
of  his  middle  life  one  son  and  six  daughters.  The 
son  had  learned  already  to  live  beyond  his  income  like  a 
gentleman  :  he  had  been  in  the  ;Blues  nearly  a  year.- 
He  was  one  of  those  seductive  fellows  whose  frank  laugh 
re-echoes  among  the  hollows  of  his  understanding.  His 
tailor  was  the  most  expensive  in  London ;  his  clubs  the 
most  exclusive ;  his  friends  the  most  numerous ;  and 
although  he  was  much  too  patrician  to  pay  his  bills,  all  the 
world  deemed  it  an  honour  to  serve  him.  Nature  had 
deemed  it  an  honour  as  well.  She  had  formed  his  hands 
and  feet,  polished  his  skin,  and  turned  his  features  with 
such  fastidious  care  that  could  Reason  have  been  induced 
to  take  one  of  these  external  parts  to  be  her  seat,  he 
would  have  had  his  pedestal  in  any  gallery  of  the  Sculptor's 
art.  Connoisseurs  were  agreed,  however,  and  among 
them  you  would  count  his  mother,  that  the  upper  storey 
had  been  somewhat  primitively  modelled  for  the  work  to 
be  a  masterpiece.  This,  however,  was  not  a  disability, 
because  Perfection  has  a  habit  of  acquiring  caste  at  the 
expense  of  the  higher  graces. 

The  daughters  had  been  educated  in  a  Spartan  manner. 
In  the  technical  metaphor  of  their  uncle  Charles,  "The 
little  chestnut  fillies  had  been  broken  to  harness  before 
they  had  their  teeth."  This  was  one  of  the  many  privileges 
they  owed  to  the  foresight  of  their  mamma,  that  austere 
lady,  whose  wisdom  taught  her  that  girls  without  money 
could  not  afford  to  keep  minds  of  their  own — ^until  they 

9 


BROKE   OF   COVENDEN 

were  married,  that  was.  A  glance  at  their  noses,  one  and 
all  of  the  uncompromising  design  of  their  race,  at  their 
clear  and  candid  eyes,  at  the  honest  blood  mantling  in 
their  cheeks,  and  you  would  have  seen  that  here  was  a  team 
to  be  trusted.  Indeed,  they  never  failed  to  respond  to  the 
hand,  and  would  have  trotted  prettily,  without  blinkers, 
over  the  face  of  a  precipice  had  that  course  been  deemed 
expedient  by  the  president  of  their  destinies.  For  the 
lady  who  stood  towards  them  in  that  relation  had  been  a 
blind  and  arbitrary  Providence  since  they  could  crawl  in 
the  nursery.  Had  it  ever  been  necessary  to  make  them 
quail,  she  was  the  one  person  in  the  world  who  had  the 
requisite  knowledge  and  power. 

Their  father  was  their  friend  and  slave.  In  all  that 
pertained  to  his  name  his  pride  was  invincible.  And 
these  lusty  creatures,  wearing  the  stamp  of  Broke  without 
embellishment,  were  as  priceless  in  his  eyes  as  the  acres 
that  had  bred  them,  and  the  pedigree  that  had  evoked 
their  being.  They  were  inalienable  blood-stock;  their 
names  were  in  the  book.  Their  mother,  whose  busi- 
ness it  was  to  represent  their  qualities  to  the  world, 
might  smile  in  her  suave  manner  to  confess  that  they  had 
not  a  penny  apiece  to  their  dot ;  that  their  looks  had  all 
foregathered  in  their  ridiculous  noses ;  that  the  sum  and 
assemblance  of  their  minds  was  paltry  ;  that  their  accom- 
plishments ended  and  began  in  a  knowledge  of  horse, 
certainly  the  friend  of  man  but  hardly  the  encyclopaedia  ; 
and  how  she  was  to  find  the  right  people  for  them  she  did 
not  know,  seeing  that  their  horoscopes  had  been  cast  in 
the  days  of  extreme  competition,  when  every  girl  was 
equipped  with  beauty,  wit,  a  nasal  accent,  or  a  million 
sterling.  And  there  were  phenomena,  as  the  newspapers 
were  never  tired  of  telling  her,  who  had  all  these  gifts  in 
one. 

Their  father  would  hear  no  complaints  of  them,  however. 
If  any  house  in  any  country  could  boast  purer  symbols  of 
the  soil,  he  was  a  Dutchman  !  With  his  great  guffaw 
would  he  vow ;  and  if  there  was  a  suspicion  of  vainglory  in 
it,  you  must  never  forget  he  was  a  signal  member  of  his 
nation,  that  he  would  not  have  them  otherwise  by  so  much 
as  a  hair.   They  were  Brokes,  every  clean  inch  of  them,  out* 

10 


PRESENTS   AN    ENGLISH    GENTLEMAN 

side  and  inside,  top  to  toe ;  he  would  ask  what  they  wanted 
with  good  looks  and  accomplishments  and  the  fal-lals  of 
the  middle-classes  ?  No,  they  were  straight  ash-sticks, 
not  over  graceful  if  you  liked,  not  particularly  supple,  but 
tough,  hardy,  full  of  fibre — tenacious  saplings  from  a  tree 
that  had  withstood  the  ravages  of  time  since  time  had 
had  a  name. 

At  eight  o'clock  on  the  morning  of  the  seventeenth 
birthday  of  his  youngest  daughter,  under  whose  inauspicious 
star  we  begin  our  story,  Broke  having  fortified  his  household 
with  prayer,  an  act  he  undertook  every  day  at  that  hour 
with  a  sacred  punctuality  born  of  the  occasion,  sat  at  the 
breakfast  table  in  the  society  of  his  wife.  They  were  alone. 
A  slight  heightening  of  Mrs.  Broke's  suavity  told  the  atten- 
dant ministers  that  the  world  this  morning  was  amiss. 
The  mellifluous  accents  in  which  she  asked  the  butler 
to  hand  some  buttered  toast  made  the  fact  too  clear. 
The  redoubtable  six  daughters  of  the  house  had  missed 
family  prayers,  were  late  for  breakfast.  The  offence  was 
grave.  Whatever  the  cause,  an  account  would  have  to  be 
rendered.  Antiquity  could  furnish.no  instance  of  the  ways 
of  that  establishment  being  ignored.  The  laws  of  the 
excellent  Medes  and  Persians  might  alter ;  the  Greek 
Kalends  might  arrive  ;  the  earth  might  run  against  the 
sun,  but  eight  o'clock  was  the  hour  at  which  they  sounded 
the  gong  at  Covenden  Hall. 

Mrs.  Broke  was  a  superb  disciplinarian,  and  born  to 
organize.  She  ordered  her  household  like  a  camp.  Von 
Moltke  himself,  that  pattern  of  a  scientist,  could  not  have 
handled  his  armies  with  a  sterner  precision  than  she  her 
domestics  and  her  daughters.  Chance  did  not  enter.  She 
put  her  faith  in  God  and  kept  her  powder  dry  in  the  true 
sense  of  that  prime  military  axiom.  She  recommended 
herself  to  Providence  by  a  vigilance  of  the  most  perfect 
kind.  Waste  there  was  not ;  neglect  was  unknown.  In 
the  course  of  a  year  she  reclaimed  the  pittance  of  a  younger 
son  by  force  of  management.  Indeed,  if  Broke  had  not 
rejoiced  in  the  possession  of  one  of  this  salutary  spirit  to 
trim  his  affairs,  foreign  and  domestic,  the  ever-impending 
crash  must  have  fallen  on  his  ears  long  before  the  period 
at  which  we  find  him. 

II 


BROKE   OF   COVENDEN 

She  was  a  notable  person  even  in  the  day  of  the  emanci- 
pation of  her  sex,  an  outstanding  example  of  the  "  whole- 
some mind  in  the  wholesome  body,"  a  very  culmination 
of  the  qualities  that  make  for  virtue,  a  beau  ideal  of  British 
motherhood  among  a  people  so  divinely  practical.  But  she 
was  something  more.  Wherever  we  find  a  mellow  laughter 
at  the  world  we  must  seek  for  disillusion.  Her  accents 
would  have  taught  you  that  she  had  known  how  to 
look  at  life.  She  had  achieved,  for  her  sex,  the  some- 
what gross  feat  of  viewing  it  with  the  naked  eye.  The 
audacious  operation  had  not  unsexed  her,  incredible  as  it 
may  appear.  Her  mind  had  hardly  surrendered  a  feather 
of  its  femininity  in  a  behaviour  so  unladylike.  There 
was  no  affectation  in  her  of  standing  in  horror  before 
her  own  hardihood  ;  no  parade  of  the  fact  that  her  daring 
was  ineffably  shocking.  That  her  fibres  had  coarsened  a 
little  she  would  have  been  the  first  to  confess,  but  was 
not  that  the  penalty  for  looking  at  the  ugly  thing  ?  The 
gazers  on  the  Gorgon  did  not  get  off  so  easily. 

It  was  a  privilege  to  see  her  at  table  in  a  morning  gown 
without  any  decoration  whatever.  There  was  capability 
stamped  on  every  line  of  that  placid  exterior.  There  was 
also  dignity  ;  those  urbane  reserves  ;  that  unembarrassed 
candour  ;  that  invincible  suavity  of  voice  and  mien  so 
indispensable  to  a  woman  of  the  world.  This  animated 
serenity  was  always  there.  It  was  extended  to  her  family 
as  unfailingly  and  with  the  same  liberality  as  to  members 
of  the  Cabinet  and  persons  accredited  to  the  Court  of 
St.  James  when  they  took  her  in  to  dinner  in  town. 
Secretly  her  daughters  dreaded  it.  In  the  obscurity  of 
their  childlike  hearts  they  could  never  mistrust  it  too  much 
or  fear  it  adequately.  A  cold  twinkle  in  her  blue  eyes, 
like  a  star  in  a  frosty  January  evening,  made  them  shiver 
whenever  they  saw  it.  Their  literal  minds  had  long  per- 
ceived steel  beneath  the  velvet,  a  gauntlet  of  iron  under 
the  glove.  Suchimmobility  was  a  curtain,  a  mask  :  if  only 
they  could  have  counted  on  finding  something  real  behind 
it,  they  might  have  learned  to  take  their  courage  in  their 
hanoa  and  tear  it  down.  Writhing  in  their  beds  at  night, 
the  surface  underneath  the  mask  assumed  so  hard  a  polish 
that  it  shone  in  a  pennanent    smile  of   deferential  con- 

13 


PRESENTS  AN  ENGLISH  GENTLEMAN 

des.:ension.  They  saw  themselves  as  Fatima,  who  pushed 
back  the  door  of  Blue  Beard's  secret  room  to  find  the 
reality  worse  than  the  surmise.  But  they  paid  for  their 
cowardice  by  having  to  rest  content  with  half  the  truth. 
The  half  they  hungered  for  they  had  to  go  without. 

A  look  of  amused  indulgence  lurked  in  the  comers  of 
her  mouth  as  she  regarded  the  vacant  places  at  the  table. 

"  How  busy  the  girls  must  be  this  morning !  It  is  so 
unlike  them  to  forget  a  meal !  " 

"  They  were  not  dancing  last  night  ?  "  Broke  asked. 

"  Oh,  no  !  They  went  to  bed  at  half-past  nine.  I  heard 
their  voices  on  the  lawn  at  six." 

"  Porson  had  better  keep  the  bacon  and  coffee  hotj 
anyhow." 

"  Pray  do  not  trouble,  Porson,"  said  Mrs.  Broke,  as  the 
hand  of  the  august  old  gentleman,  the  butler,  began  to 
hover  about  the  side-table. 

She  rose  herself,  removed  the  cover  of  the  bacon  dish 
and  lifted  the  lid  of  the  coffee-pot  to  afford  their  contents 
every  facility  for  getting  cold. 

"  Pity  they  are  so  late,"  she  remarked,  pouring  milk 
into  a  saucer  and  placing  it  at  the  disposal  of  a  cat  that 
was  rubbing  itself  about  her  ankles. 

They  ate  their  toast  in  silence.  Broke  was  soon  en- 
trenched behind  the  Standard  newspaper,  an  operation  he 
conducted  patiently  every  morning  in  the  year.  His 
fidelity  to  our  national  organ  was  so  unswerving  that 
when  Svmday  came  he  read  the  advertisements  con- 
tained in  the  issue  of  the  day  before.  The  outlook  of 
man  and  wife  towards  things  and  men  could  not 
have  been  more  excellently  poised  than  in  their  attitude 
towards  this  prop  of  the  Constitution.  In  the  eyes  of 
Broke  it  was  a  virgin  British  newspaper,  composed  exclu- 
sively by  gentlemen  for  the  exclusive  use  of  gentlemen  ; 
in  the  eyes  of  Mrs.  Broke  it  took  the  place  of  Punch,  the 
official  and  no  less  portentous  engine  of  the  national 
humour. 

By  the  time  our  hero  was  immersed  in  entrancing  details 
of  the  immemorial  bonhomie  of  the  members  of  the 
regnant  family,  as  manifested  in  various  places  to  all 
sorts  and  conditions  of  men  the  previous  day,  Mrs.  Brdce 

13 


BROKE   OF   COVENDEN 

had  opened  the  more  enticing  of  her  letters.  She  conld 
detect  by  instinct  a  bill  or  an  advertisement  whatever  its 
blandishment  of  wrapper.  The  first  she  opened  chanced  to 
be  a  piece  of  cardboard  in  these  terms  :  "The  Lady  Salmon 
at  Home — Toplands — 22nd  February.  Dancing  9  to  3." 
In  the  top  corner  it  was  endorsed,  "  The  Honble.  Mrs. 
Broke  and  party." 

With  her  imperturbable  meekness  she  contrived  to  get 
this  document  across  the  table  and  past  the  barrier  of 
the  Standard  newspaper.  Our  hero  lowered  it  for  a  moment 
and  was  seen  to  read.  In  the  act  he  might  also  have  been 
seen  to  be  frowning  heavily. 

"  Impertinence  !  "  he  said. 

"  A  Uttle  uncompromising,  are  you  not,  my  dear  ?  " 

"  Not  at  all.     Impertinence." 

A  whimsical  little  sigh  escaped  Mrs.  Broke.  It  was  also 
fond,  Uke  that  of  a  mother  who  opens  the  nursery  door 
and  has  her  ears  assailed  with  a  tin  trumpet  blown  by  a 
petticoated  son  and  heir  who  is  making  a  furious  circuit 
of  the  room  with  a  tin  sword,  a  paper  helmet,  and  a  wooden 
charger. 

"  You  were  not  going  to  know  those  people,  I  under- 
stood." 

"  Will  nothing  induce  you  to  surrender  a  little  to  the  age, 
my  love  ?  " 

She  purred  like  the  cat  who  had  already  lapped  its  milk. 

"  I — ah,  don't  see  what  the  age  has  got  to  do  with  it.  It 
makes  those  people  no  better.     It  makes  them  worse." 

Mrs.  Broke  pursed  her  mouth  wooingly.  She  was  an 
oppressively  plain  woman,  yet  with  all  the  phN,-sical  wiles 
of  a  professional  beauty. 

"  If  this  were  the  age  of  idealism  there  might  be  an 
objection  even  to  a  Jewish  financier.  But  since  it  is  that 
of  Mammon,  the  sons  of  Benjamin  are  our  deities." 

"  I— ah,  deny  that  it  is  the  age  of  Mammon  as  you  call 
it." 

"  Then  you  become  Don  Quixote  at  once.  You  remem- 
ber how  the  Knight  of  La  Mancha  insisted  on  chivalry  in 
an  age  that  had  become  prosaic.  He  remained  a  knightly 
figure  against  the  advice  of  his  friends,  at  a  great  deaJ 
of  personal  inconvenience.     And  we  must  not  forget  that 

14 


PRESENTS  AN  ENGLISH  GENTLEMAN 

because  he  ran  a-tilt  at  his  time  and  got  nothing  more 
profitable  than  a  broken  head  for  his  pains,  the  world  has 
not  yet  done  laughing  at  him.  My  dear,  your  environ- 
ment appears  to  be  exciting  the  same  heroical  frenzy  in 
you  ;  yet  if  you  butt  at  it,  however  thick  your  dear  old 
John  Bull  poll  may  be,  you  will  find  that  a  poultice  made 
out  of  vinegar  and  perhaps  the  Standard  newspaper  is  the 
only  laurel  that  will  crown  it.  That  would  be  grotesque." 

"  Humbug,  radical  humbug  !  " 

"  Seek,  my  love,  to  develop  your  sense  of  the  absurd." 

"  I  have  too  much.  I  wonder  what  those  people  take  us 
for !  " 

"  It  is  not  what  they  take  us  for,  it  is  what  we  are.  When 
we  have  ceased  to  deceive  others,  is  it  not  time  we  gave 
up  striving  to  deceive  ourselves  ?  " 

"  I — ah,  don't  quite  follow." 

"  We  must  come  off  the  high  horse,  my  love.  The  noble 
quadruped  is  a  little  obsolete.  Besides,  have  we  not  lost 
something  of  the  art  of  sitting  it  ?     The  people  laugh." 

"  Why,  I  don't  know." 

"  There  are  a  thousand  resisons.  Many  of  them  humili- 
ating, sordid,  vulgar." 

"  Money  I — ah,  suppose." 

Our  hero  spoke  with  the  reluctance  of  intellectual  effort; 

"  You  are  wise  to  make  that  admission." 

"  I — ah,  make  no  admission.  We  may  be  rather  hard 
up,  but  we  have  managed  to  rub  along  without  Tom,  Dick 
and  Harry  until  now,  and  I — ah,  don't  see  why  we  should 
not  continue." 

Mrs.  Broke  shook  her  head  at  him  archly.  There  was 
something  indulgent  too.  Here  was  the  whetstone  on  which 
every  morning  she  sharpened  her  gift. 

Before  either  side  might  advance  farther  towards  a 
pleasant  controversy  that  generally  arose  between  them 
twice  a  week,  our  hero's  heavy  face  lightened  to  a  look  of 
interest.  Voices  sounded  across  the  lawn.  Raised  in 
laughter  and  execitement,  they  were  clear  and  ringing,  of 
a  bell-like  timbre,  to  be  heard  a  long  way  off.  Within  a 
minute  the  girls  poured  in  through  the  French  window 
of  the  room  in  which  their  father  and  mother  sat. 

There  M'as  a  singular  uniformity  in  one  and  all.     Six 

15 


BROKE   OF   COVENDEN 

peas  in  the  same  pod  could  not  have  had  a  quainter  resem- 
blance to  one  another.  Their  alikeness  made  them  ab- 
surdly difficult  to  tell  apart.  They  had  an  air  of  being 
made  according  to  regulation.  Every  small  detail  of  them 
seemed  to  be  fashioned  strictly  after  some  arbitrary  pattern 
which  had  been  sanctioned  by  expert  authority,  like  service 
tunics  or  policemen's  boots  or  helmets.  This  could  not  be 
said  to  make  for  beauty,  any  more  than  do  the  points  in 
dogs  and  horses,  except  in  the  eyes  of  those  educated  to  the 
technicalities.  The  verdict  of  the  world,  that  scrupulous 
embodiment  of  the  obvious,  was  that  they  were  decidedly 
plain,  not  to  say  ugly.  Connoisseurs  in  curves,  in  cap- 
tivating hues,  in  titillating  undulations  had  no  hesitation 
whatever  in  making  a  little  humorous  shrug  of  protest  in 
turning  away  their  eyes. 

The  only  compliment  you  could  pay  them  positively  was 
that  they  were  beautifully  clean.  It  was  a  quality  that 
had  a  pathos  in  it,  for  it  is  negative,  in  women  painfully ; 
and  here  it  was  accentuated  with  a  cruel  sharpness  by  their 
old  and  rude  and  shabby  and  misshapen  clothes.  Their 
old  straw  hats  encircled  by  weather-stained  black  ribbons, 
were  eloquent  in  testimony  that  more  than  one  summer 
and  winter  had  beaten  over  them  ;  their  boots  were  thick 
and  clumsy  ;  their  short  skirts  flopped  about  gaunt  ankles. 
Physically  they  had  nothing  to  overcome  and  carry  off  their 
clothes.  They  drooped  dankly  on  their  lean  flanks. 
Small  and  thin,  with  a  greyhound's  spareness  of  limb, 
finely  suggestive  of  an  outdoor  life  and  animal  condition, 
they  were  much  too  wiry  and  fine-drawn  for  feminine 
enchantments.  "  Hard-bitten  beggars,"  their  father  called 
them. 

In  colour  they  were  as  the  doe;  and  healthy  as  the  wind. 
In  their  faces  was  the  keen  wistfulness  of  the  foxhound, 
but  this  did  nothing  to  mitigate  their  piainness.  The 
austere  features  of  their  mother,  unredeemed  by  tact  and 
animation,  would  not  have  been  so  hopeless,  for  raised  in 
the  midst  of  each  countenance  was  an  obstacle  hers  had 
not  to  contend  against.  Their  keenly  chiselled  faces, 
thrown  into  bas-relief  by  the  remarkable  arch  of  an  heredi- 
tary nose,  they  were  only  saved  from  the  grotesque  by  a 
sheer  miracle  of  historical  association.     This  object  was 

i6 


PRESENTS  AN  ENGLISH  GENTLEMAN 

doubtless  a  famous  talisman ;  but  a  woman  who  was  sen- 
sitive would  not  have  had  to  look  much  beyond  it  to  find 
tragedy.  It  was  the  boast  of  him  who  cherished  them  most 
fondly  that  there  was  not  a  trace  of  self-consciousness  about 
them,  but  there  was  one  at  least,  whom  fate  had  called  on 
to  support  this  feature,  to  whom  Cyrano  de  Bergerac  was  a 
Cgure  about  whose  devoted  head  a  heart-moving  pathos 
played. 

Still,  however,  there  were  those  who  were  not  afraid  to 
praise.  For  if  in  women  there  is  health  added  to  vivid 
youth,  to  which  is  superadded  that  saving  quality  that 
goes  by  the  name  of  breeding,  the  mysterious  aroma 
savouring  of  nature  and  the  soil,  like  the  bouquet  in  wine, 
a  Httle  nmiination  on  the  sex  will  sometimes  evolve  merit 
where  you  would  look  to  find  it  least.  Much  depends  upon 
the  courtesy  of  the  beholder,  but  tolerably  lenient  verdicts 
have  been  given  by  kindly  persons  upon  a  grotesquerie  no 
less  than  theirs.  Many  a  half-protesting  and  half-apolo- 
getic portrait  was  furnished  of  them  by  the  indulgent  people 
with  whom  they  were  brought  in  contact.  They  were 
likened  now  to  clean-bred  horses,  now  to  Belvoir  entry ; 
but,  as  usual,  their  uncle  Charles  transcended  all  in  profusion 
of  alliteration  and  boldness  of  imagery.  His  dictum  to  his 
sister  was  :  "  Those  little  fillies  are  like  that  bow-legged 
bull-bitch  o'  mine — a  dam'  sight  too  full  of  breed.  You'll 
never  mairy  'em,  Jane,  any  more  than  my  little  bitch  will 
ever  get  a  prize  at  the  show.  They  don't  know  what's 
what  nowadays.     They've  lost  the  knack  of  judgin'." 

As  they  streamed  in  through  the  open  window,  bearing 
the  February  hoar  on  their  shoes  and  coats  and  in  their  hair, 
they  looked  six  of  the  straightest,  cleanliest  animals  that 
ever  exulted  in  liberty.  There  was  a  scuffle  for  their 
father's  greeting.  They  clustered  around  him  the  six  as 
one,  and  all  took  part  in  vigorous  manoeuvres  about  his 
chair,  for  this  was  an  open  competition  permitted  even  by 
their  remarkable  decorum.  It  would  have  been  a  fault  in 
honour  to  submit  without  protest  to  the  second  place. 
Their  mother  was  spared  this  ordeal.  With  one  of  her 
dignity,  whatever  the  condescension  with  which  it  was  girt 
about,  such  a  behaviour  would  have  landed  them  in  the 
incongruous  at  once.     One  by  one  they  approached  her 

17  B 


BROKE    OF    COVENDEN 

modestly,  and  took  a  sparrow-like  peck  at  her  cheek, 
short  and  quick  and  nervous,  in  spite  of  the  graceful  aii: 
with  which  it  was  proffered.  While  this  feat  was  being 
performed  their  fears  were  denoted  in  fawn-like  glances 
at  her. 

They  were  at  a  fine  pitch  of  excitement.  Adventures 
rare  and  strange  had  befallen  them  ;  but  as  all  their  tongues 
were  going  at  once  and  tuned  to  an  epic  fervour  befitting 
their  deeds,  the  effect  in  the  ear  of  their  father  was  not 
unlike  the  poetry  of  the  late  Mr.  Browning. 

"  Yes,  yes,"  he  said,  with  a  high  guffaw,  "  fine  story — 
graphic,  spirited  and  so  on,  and  very  exciting ;  but  suppose 
you  tell  us  what  it  is  all  about.  Suppose  we  have  one  at 
a  time.     Joan,  we  will  hear  you." 

"  We've  caught  a  badger,  father,"  said  his  eldest. 
daughter,  hastening  to  give  the  official  version  with  a 
blush  of  pride. 

"  No,  father,  we  dug  it  out,"  sang  the  other  five. 

"  No,  old  Joe  dug  it  out,"  said  Joan. 

"  But  we  helped  him,"  said  Margaret. 

"  It  is  a  dog  badger,  father,"  said  PhiHppa  importantly. 

"  Oh,  indeed  !  " 

"  It  is  a  very  big  badger,  father,  for  its  size,"  said  Harriet, 
overborne  by  her  earnestness. 

"  You  would  lead  me  to  suppose  so,"  said  her  amiable 
sire. 

"  It  is  very  ugly,  father,"  said  Janej 

"  And  very  fierce,  father." 

"  And  it  does  look  wicked,  father." 

"  And  it  is  ever  so  shaggy,  father." 

"  And  it  has  got  such  teeth,  father  !  "  they  chimed  in  one 
after  another,  each  declining  to  forfeit  her  prescriptive 
right  to  supply  a  personal  description  to  the  interested 
gentleman.  It  was  reserved  for  his  youngest  daughter, 
however,  to  add  the  touch  of  verisimilitude  to  this  mass  of 
flat  and  unprofitable  detail. 

"  And,  oh,  father,  it  can  bite  !  "  said  Delia  proudly. 
With  equal  pride  she  displayed  a  hand  enclosed  in  a  hand- 
kerchief, freely  spotted  with  blood. 

"  Silly  little  beggar  !  "  said  her  sire,  indulgently  seizing  her 
to  regard  the  rather  pronounced  evidence  of  the  badger's 

i8 


PRESENTS  AN  ENGLISH  GENTLEMAN 

ability  in  that  line  of  effort.     "  Silly  little  beggar!  "     He 
tapped  a  cheek  ruddier  than  the  cherry. 

Joe  had  been  brought  to  show  the  badger.  That 
wizened  retainer  stood  on  the  lawn  in  his  moleskin  waist 
coat  with  his  captive  in  a  bag.  Their  father  was  haled  into 
the  winter  morning  to  inspect  the  creature.  Nothing  short 
of  his  personal  approbation  could  appease  the  pride  of  its 
captors.  A  word  of  sanction  from  him  was  the  crown  of 
any  high  emprise,  the  consummation  of  any  glorious 
undertaking.  Their  mother  also  followed  to  do  it  honour. 
She  was  uninvited,  and  was  not  interested  in  it  in  the  least, 
but  it  was  significant  of  her  that  she  never  failed  in  any 
little  act,  however  trivial  or  perfunctory,  if  there  was  a 
superficial  grace  in  the  performance  of  it.  She  opened 
more  bazaars  than  any  lady  in  the  county.  Where  another 
would  not  have  taken  the  trouble  to  leave  her  chair,  she 
sallied  out  with  an  alert  smile  to  bestow  her  patronage. 

The  comments  of  man  and  wife  on  the  wild-looking  beast 
were  characteristic. 

"  Ugly  devil !  "  said  Broke. 

"  How  very  quaint  and  delightful !  "  said  Mrs.  Broke. 
"  Oh,  you  dear  thing  !  It  is  so  clever  of  you  girls  to  have 
caught  it,  I'm  sure.  You  must  be  so  pleased.  You  will 
keep  it  for  a  pet  of  course.  You  must  ask  Joe  to  build  it 
a  hutch.  You  can  take  it  away  now,  Joe  ;  and  thank  you 
so  much." 

The  badger  being  dismissed  in  this  delicate  manner,  its 
captors,  still  exultant,  sat  down  to  their  belated  meal. 

"  We  found  it  half  way  up  the  hill,  father,  just  against 
the  spinney,"  he  was  informed.  Like  his  own,  it  was 
difficult  to  start  their  minds  on  any  subject;  but  once  the 
feat  was  accomplished  it  was  no  less  difficult  to  stop  them. 
"  It  was  near  the  old  elm  tree  where  we  saw  the  white  owl 
in  the  summer." 

"  If  you  catch  that,  there  will  be  a  shilling  apiece  for 
you." 

Under  the  spell  cast  by  this  shining  lure  they  began  upon 
their  breakfast.  It  was  a  feast  from  which  only  youthful 
vigour  might  hope  to  rise  victorious.  Its  ingredients  were 
a  huge  dish  heaped  with  bacon,  long  ago  frozen  in  its 
grease ;  substantial  slabs  of  bread  and  large  cups  of  weak 

19 


BROKE    OF   COVENDEN 

lukewarm  coffee  made  with  water.  Their  appetites  were 
of  that  supreme  quality,  however,  to  which  all  fare 
comes  as  meat  and  drink.  They  flinched  from  nothing, 
nor  did  they  pause  to  discriminate.  An  ox  roasted 
whole  and  truffles  in  aspic  were  to  them  identical.  Their 
simimary  methods  with  a  meal  that  was  enough  to  make 
a  civilized  digestion  shudder,  drew  a  smile  from  their 
mother,  a  somewhat  weary  one,  it  must  be  confessed,  for 
a  woman  so  redoubtable.  The  charge  had  been  hurled  at 
them  by  their  celebrated  aunt  Emma  of  "  unfeminine 
robustness."  "  One  thinks  of  pigs  at  a  trough,  my  dear 
Jane,"  she  had  said  in  a  moment  of  inspired  delicacy. 

"  The  meet's  at  half-past  eleven,"  said  their  father,  "  up 
at  the  Grove." 

"  Of  course,  father." 

They  nodded  sagely  across  the  coffee-cups  with  their 
mouths  full. 

"  Whose  turn  to-day  ?  " 

This  question  gave  a  new  lease  to  excitement,  verging 
on  uproar.  Their  tongues  were  unloosed  again,  and  ran 
riot  for  a  moment  in  something  approaching  internecine 
strife.  Their  father  cried,  "  Chair  !  Chair  !  "  and  tapped 
the  bowl  of  his  pipe  on  the  table.  Their  obedience  was  so 
sudden  as  to  be  a  little  ludicrous.  The  loudest  voice  was 
quelled  by  the  word  of  authority.  Such  discipline  was  the 
fruit  of  centuries,  no  doubt.  They  were  descended  on  both 
sides  from  generations  of  warriors  accustomed  to  obey  and 
to  be  obeyed. 

"  Now  then,  Joan,  who  rides  ?  " 

"  We  don't  know,  father,"  said  his  eldest  daughter, 
with  a  countenance  of  much  perplexity.  "  The  Doctor 
put  his  foot  in  a  rabbit  hole  last  week  and  strained  his  off 
fore-leg.  Simkin  says  we  can't  have  him  out  for  a  fort- 
night. And  Whitenose  has  got  a  hot  hough,  and  Robin 
has  been  coughing  in  the  night." 

"  H'm — unfortunate.     Still,  settle  it  somehow." 

These  sportswomen,  to  have  recourse  again  to  the 
technicality  of  their  uncle  Charles,  the  master  of  the  pack, 
"  Six  days  a-weekers  every  one,"  had  to  have  their 
privileges  regulated  on  a  fixed  principle.  There  was  a 
limit  to  their  stable.     In  the  height  of  the  season,  if  stress 

20 


PRESENTS  AN  ENGLISH  GENTLEMAN 

of  weather  did  not  intervene  to  give  their  hunters  a  rest, 
they  either  had  to  set  particular  fixtures  apart  for  this 
purpose,  or  submit  to  be  mounted  four  at  a  time,  while  the 
two  remaining  did  what  they  could  with  their  bicycles. 
The  accident  to  The  Doctor,  and  the  precarious  condition 
of  Whitenose  and  Robin  had  made  it  imperative  that  a 
third  should  forego  her  claims  to  the  appropriate  mode. 
One  and  all  were  much  too  keen,  however,  to  waive  them 
lightly,  Jane  and  Harriet  retired  by  rotation,  but  none 
of  the  more  fortunate  four  could  be  brought  to  see  that 
perfect  equity  was  consistent  with  self-sacrifice.  Besides, 
is  it  not  pre-eminently  English  to  insist  on  your  rights  as 
an  individual  if  you  ever  happen  to  possess  any  ? 

It  was  precisely  here,  for  the  first  time  in  the  history  oi 
the  house,  that  anarchy,  the  modem  canker,  showed  a  dis- 
position to  rear  its  horrid  head  in  an  ancient  virgin  govern- 
ment. 

"  Perhaps  we  might  have  one  of  the  bays  for  to-day," 
said  Delia  in  a  tentatively  timid  manner.  She  blushed  to 
hear  her  own  voice  in  public.  Alone  in  that  august 
assembly  the  hardihood  seemed  too  immense.  But  it  is 
only  timidity  that  can  acquire  a  particular  kind  of  boldness. 
The  next  instant  she  was  blushing  still  more. 

Her  sisters  had  turned  five  faces  as  one  of  an  amazed 
disapproval  towards  her.  They  put  down  their  coffee  cups 
and  stared  at  her  with  round  eyes  of  resolute  wonder.  On 
three  counts  at  least  her  guilt  was  enormous.  In  the  first 
place  she  had  no  right  to  an  opinion  on  a  subject  of  any 
kind,  much  less  to  have  the  effrontery  to  utter  it  before 
their  father.  Again,  if  she  had  had  a  right,  the  privilege 
of  uttering  it  in  that  august  assembly  was  wholly  precluded 
by  her  extreme  youth — she  was  a  year  younger  than  Jane 
and  Margaret,  and  four  years  younger  than  Joan,  a  pair  of 
twins  intervening.  And,  most  heinous  offence  of  ^1,  she 
had  been  guilty  of  an  idea  !  How  such  a  silly,  inoffensive 
little  kid  had  come  by  such  a  dangerous  implement  they 
could  not  guess.  And  she  dared  to  show  it  off  before  her 
father ! 

In  a  painful  silence  they  waited  while  Joan,  the  one  having 
authority,  and  always  their  natural  leader  by  an  inimitable 
force  of  character,  proceeded  to  clear  her  mouth  of  bacon 

21 


BROKE    OF   COVENDEN 

before  proceeding  to  clear  the  mind  of  the  childish  Delia  of 
cant. 

"  It  does  not  seem  right,"  said  that  formidable  young 
person  in  a  tone  as  exquisitely  detached  as  that  of  aunt 
Emma  herself,  "  to  ride  to  hounds  on  a  carriage  horse.  It 
seems  Hke  making  a  pretence  of  doing  what  you  cannot. 
If  one  is  not  to  be  with  hounds,  I  think  one  ought  to  go  on 
a  bicycle.     Besides,  we  have  not  been  used  to  it." 

The  others  chimed  in  solemnly  to  crush  their  youngest 
sister  with  their  grave  accord.  It  was  a  terrible  disgrace 
for  her,  before  their  father  too,  poor  little  kid !  but  your 
truly  Spartan  nature  does  not  flinch  from  the  administra- 
tion of  punishment,  even  when  it  is  likely  to  recoil  on  those 
who  wield  the  rod.  But  it  was  left  to  their  father  himself 
to  lay  on  the  severest  stroke. 

"  I  think  you  are  right,  Joan,"  he  said  with  a  gravity 
as  magisterial  as  their  own.  "It  is  a  fine  point,  but  I 
endorse  your  view.  Not  that  it  matters,  of  course,  but 
personally  I — ah,  think  it  can  be  considered.  It  has  not 
struck  me  in  that  light  before,  but  now  it  is  pointed  out  the 
spirit  is  sound.  Of  course  you  can  go  on  anything  with 
four  legs  to  it,  if  you  have  not  anything  better,  or  are  not 
used  to — ah,  anything  better ;  but  I  think  you  are  right 
if  you  don't.  It  may  be  drawing  it  a  bit  fine,  but  personally 
I — ah,  think  one  cannot  be  too  jealous  for  the — ^ah,  dignity 
of  covert." 

This  piece  of  dialectics,  given  in  the  judicial  syllables 
of  an  admired  Chairman  of  Quarter  Sessions,  thrilled 
five  excited  bosoms  of  those  present  in  that  court.  There 
was  a  sixth — a  sixth  who  had  opened  her  mischievous 
blue  eyes  and  was  laughing  softly,  an  incendiary  whom 
fortunately  neither  the  judge  nor  the  jury,  terribly  in  earnest 
as  they  were,  could  spare  a  thought  to  take  notice  of.  Had 
they  done  so,  she  might  have  been  ordered  to  retire. 
But  the  culprit  herself  was  covered  in  confusion.  Women 
are  sensitive ;  and  if  they  are  not  to  tingle,  it  be- 
hoves the  objects  of  their  worship  to  acquire  the  art  of 
dissenting  from  them  delicately.  That  she  had  com- 
mitted an  awful  solecism  had  been  made  clear  to  her, 
but  she  had  no  means  of  telling  what  it  was.  There  was  a 
subtle  twist  in  her  callow    mind   that  forbade  it  to  dis- 

22 


PRESENTS  AN  ENGLISH  GENTLEMAN 

cern  the  banality  in  riding  a  carriage  horse  to  hounds  ; 
and  worse,  the  affront  conceived  to  custom!  Otheis 
rode  any  sort  of  horse,  why  not  they  ?  Probably  it  was 
a  new  idea  to  them  ;  but  to  others  it  was  not.  Even  her 
forehead  was  such  a  tawny  scarlet  that  her  father  observed 
it.  The  next  instant  she  was  trembling  under  his  great 
guffaw. 

"  My  dear  child,"  he  said,  with  a  grim  chuckle,  "  you  are 
not  going  to  be  a  woman  of  ideas,  are  you  ?  Not  going  to 
be  a  second  Aunt  Emma,  eh,  little  girl  ?  Must  be  careful, 
must  be  careful." 

Delia  nearly  wept.  That  stroke  cut  very  deep.  Such 
an  odious  reference  had  never  been  made  by  their 
father  before,  although  their  mother  had  long  known  how 
to  employ  it.  No  more  striking  proof  of  the  serious 
nature  of  the  misdemeanour  could  have  been  adduced. 
The  culprit  redoubled  her  efforts  to  find  wherein  she 
had  offended  so  signally.  Like  a  captive  bird  she  beat 
against  the  bars  of  the  narrow  cage  of  her  intelligence  ; 
but  she  could  not  reach  to  the  secret  of  her  enormity. 
Yet  whatever  it  might  be,  cunningly  she  tried  to  wipe  out 
the  stain  by  an  act  of  public  virtue. 

"  I  will  cycle  to-day,  Joan,"  she  said.  The  scarlet  was 
still  burning  at  the  roots  of  her  hair. 

"  Indeed,  no,"  said  Joan.  "  That  would  not  be  fair. 
We  would  not  ask  it  of  you."  There  was  an  imperial  snub 
in  the  impartial  voice  that  made  Delia  too  frightened  to  say 
another  word. 

In  the  end  the  question  of  who  should  ride  horses  and 
who  should  ride  bicycles  was  submitted  to  him  most  fitted 
to  decide  it.  As  no  method  of  escaping  the  impasse  was 
vouchsafed  to  the  feminine  intelligence  it  was  clearly  a  case 
for  the  higher  court.  Their  faith  in  their  father  was 
most  catholic.  On  the  lightest  or  most  abstruse  point  his 
word  was  law.  He  chose  on  this  occasion,  in  the  fashion 
of  Solomon,  to  expound  his  wisdom  by  a  mechanical  means. 

"  Better  draw  lots." 

It  was  Delia  who  was  called  upon  to  forfeit  her  claim. 
No  less  was  to  be  expected  of  that  inexorable  Destiny 
which  never  forgets  to  punish,  although  not  so  con- 
scientious in  the  matter  of  reward.  Surely  it  was  just  that 

23 


BROKE    OF    COVENDEN 

she  who  had  dared  to  suggest  a  carriage-horse  should  be 
condemned  by  Circumstance  masquerading  in  the  livery  of 
Chance  to  an  even  ruder  form  of  locomotion.  Poor  Uttle 
kid,  on  her  birthday  too  !  Still  it  was  no  part  of  the  duties 
of  Destiny  to  recognize  incongruities  of  that  sort. 

However,  no  sooner  had  all  been  contrived  to  their 
pleasure,  and  they  had  fallen  to  discussing  the  behaviour 
of  the  frost  and  the  prospect  of  its  going  in  time  for  hounds 
to  do  their  work,  than  their  mother  interposed  in  that  mild 
voice  they  had  cause  to  know  so  well. 

"  I  was  rather  hoping,  children,  that  you  would  not  hunt 
to-day.  Do  you  think  I  could  persuade  you  to  do  two  or 
three  hours'  reading  with  me  before  luncheon  ?  It  might 
be  of  service  to  your  minds,  and  I  am  sure  your  first  wish 
is  to  improve  them." 

The  faces  of  our  six  Dianas  were  poignant.  Their  con- 
sternation was  complete.  Their  mother's  smile  grew  in  its 
expanse  until  the  gold  stopping  was  seen  to  glitter  round 
a  tooth  in  her  upper  jaw. 

"  As  you  were  not  present  this  morning  at  prayers,  I 
feel  sure  that  two  or  three  hours'  solid  reading  would  help 
you  to  regain  a  little  of  that  which  you  have  unwittingly 
lost.  I  am  sure  we  all  agree  with  dear  Aunt  Emma  when 
she  says  with  an  inimitable  insight  all  her  own,  in  one  of 
the  many  pure  and  bloodless  passages  with  which  she  has 
chastened  the  English  language,  "  that  a  portion  of  the 
higher  literature,  German,  Scandinavian  or  Chinese  for 
preference,  read  aloud  in  the  home  morning  or  evening,  or 
even  in  the  middle  of  the  daj',  or  at  any  hour  when  one  is 
not  in  bed,  is  to  the  animal  spirit  as  a  sedative,  and  to  the 
understanding  as  is  an  iron  tonic."  Now,  as  your  absence 
from  prayers  this  morning  seemed  to  imply  that  English 
literature  had  for  the  time  being  lost  its  savour  for  you,  I 
shall  be  curious  to  see  if  the  German  philosophers — let  us 
say  Hegel — as  I  cannot  implicitly  trust  you  not  to  under- 
stand a  word  of  him,  Nietsche  is  out  of  the  question — let 
us  say  Hegt^l's  Lectures  on  the  Philosophy  of  Religion,  cannot 
stimulate  your  minds  to  acquire  a  renewed  interest  in  the 
prose  poetry  of  your  native  tongue." 

Each  stroke  was  dealt  delicately  by  a  past  mistress  in  her 
art.   The  high  mild  voice,  so  caressing  as  to  seem  obsequious, 

24 


PRESENTS  AN  ENGLISH  GENTLEMAN 

the  air  of  deep  maternal  solicitude  that  put  them  back  into 
the  nursery  at  once,  her  winning  grace,  and,  above  all,  the 
reference  to  the  author  of  Pvses  in  the  Opaque,  that  recherche 
collection  of  essays  whose  publication  was  claimed  by  its 
admirers  as  marking  an  epoch  in  the  world  of  taste,  brought 
such  a  flush  on  their  cheeks  as  nothing  else  could  have 
done. 

They  had  not  a  word  to  say  in  mitigation  of  sentence. 
To  be  sure  they  were  no  longer  in  the  nursery,  but  their 
discipline  remained  a  wonderful,  a  surpassing  thing.  They 
were  physically  incapable  of  questioning  authority,  even 
in  its  most  arbitrary  form.  In  silence  they  bowed  their 
proud  heads,  and  re-applied  themselves  to  bacon.  If  there 
was  a  slightly  moist  softness  in  the  eyes  of  Delia — and  we 
must  urge  upon  you  respectfully  that  we  are  by  no  means 
certain  even  of  that — you  must  remember  that  she  was  a 
full  year  the  youngest  of  them  all,  and  precisely  by  that 
length  of  time  was  less  of  a  Broke  than  her  sisters. 

"  I  think  you  are  a  bit  hard  on  them,"  said  their  father. 
"  Anyhow  they  shall  go  to-morrow.  But  I  don't  think 
they  will  miss  much  ;  we  never  have  much  luck  at  the 
Grove.  In  '59,  in  '79,  in  '92  we  drew  it  blank,  and  in  '83 
we  found  a  mangy  fox  in  it.  Besides,  I  don't  think  this 
frost  will  clear  oft  after  all ;  and  even  if  it  does,  the  going 
will  be  beastly." 

Such  consolation,  elaborate  as  it  was,  did  not  soften 
their  pangs  ;  but  it  was  this  sort  of  tenderness  for  them 
that  made  their  father  the  finest  comrade  in  the  world. 
Not  only  was  he  a  god  and  a  hero,  but  a  personal  friend  : 
a  happy  conjunction  of  qualities  that  argues  a  nature  of  an 
almost  paradoxical  scope.  Reverence  seldom  goes  with 
familiarity,  as  you  know.  The  deities  are  said  to  be 
austere. 

However,  at  this  painful  moment,  when  there  was  no  more 
bacon  left  on  the  dish  and  only  grains  in  the  coffee-pot,  when 
therefore  the  only  alleviation  that  was  possible  was  put 
away,  a  diversion  was  created  by  the  opening  of  the  door, 
and  the  announcement — 

"  Lord  Bosket," 


25 


CHAPTER  II 
A  Matrimonial  Martyr  on  the  Tragic  Theme 

AN  odd  little  man  waddled  in.  His  legs  were  so  crooked 
with  addiction  to  the  saddle  that  he  looked  as  pain- 
fully out  of  his  element  in  a  pedestrian  mode  as  a  mariner 
on  dry  land.  His  face  and  head  were  as  bald  as  a  toad's 
— theSieurde  Montaigne's,  if  the  Sieur  had  not  had  a  little 
moustache.  The  colour  of  his  skin,  empurpled  by  the 
wind  and  rain,  was  that  of  an  overripe  tomato  ;  not  only 
brave  in  good  living  and  the  open  air,  but  with  also  a  shine 
of  wassail  in  it,  a  puffy  lustre  that  enhanced  the  bloom  of 
his  complexion  while  it  blurred  the  ferret-like  sharpness  of 
his  face.  His  somewhat  debased  features  were  suffused 
with  melancholy,  partly  querulous  and  partly  humorous. 
It  lent  him  a  slightly  whimsical  air,  which  seemed  to  imply 
that  he  had  the  habit  of  looking  at  life  with  his  own  peculiar 
eyes.  He  was  as  one  who  acquiesces  in  his  lot  against  his 
judgment,  yet  shrinks  to  seek  another  lest,  so  poor  is  his 
opinion  of  himself  and  the  world  in  general,  he  should  find 
a  worse.  In  his  teeth  was  a  straw  ;  in  his  hunting  scarf 
an  enormous  pin  cast  in  the  device  of  a  fox  ;  a  fur-lined 
greatcoat  was  thrown  back  to  display  his  pink,  and  as  he 
waddled  in  twirling  his  velvet  cap  on  the  end  of  his  whip 
it  was  not  easy  for  any  save  the  specialist  in  the  fine  shades 
of  gentility  to  discern  where  the  groom  ended  and  the 
gentleman  began. 

"  Mornin',"  he  said,  with  a  large  gesture  that  embraced 
one  and  all  in  a  manner  that  was  at  once  the  perfection  of 
the  aflectionate  and  the  casual.  "  How  are  my  little 
cockyoly  birds  this  mornin'  ?     Pert  as  robins,  and  as  sharp 

26 


A    MATRIMONIAL    MARTYR 

as  hawks !  Peckin'  are  they ;  noses  in  the  manger  ? 
Toppin'  up  with  porridge  and  bacon  and  a  bit  o'  marma- 
lade ?  What,  no  marmalade  !  Here,  my  boy,  the  mar- 
malade at  once." 

While  this  commodity  was  being  procured,  he  wagged 
his  head  and  muttered,  "  Must  have  marmalade,"  in 
various  keys.  On  its  appearance  he  examined  it  as  critically 
as  a  bushel  of  oats  he  was  about  to  give  a  favourite  mare, 
and  set  out  on  a  tour  of  the  table,  dabbing  a  huge  spoonful 
on  the  plate  of  each  of  his  nieces,  ending  with  Delia,  upon 
whom  he  bestowed  "  one  extry  for  little  Miss  Mufiit." 

"  And  what's  the  matter  with  her  finger  ?  " 

"  A  badger  has  bitten  it,  Uncle  Charles,"  said  Dehd  with 
great  pride. 

"  A  badger  has  bitten  it.  Lord-love-a-duck !  Dig 
badgers  and  ichthyo-what-do-you-call-ems  out  o'  the  back 
garden,  I  suppose  ?  " 

"  Out  of  the  spinney,  Uncle  Charles,"  they  chimed 
together. 

An  equally  animated  and  incoherent  account  of  the  great 
event  was  furnished  for  this  indulgent  person. 

"  We'll  be  diggin'  out  foxes  in  about  two-twos,"  said  he, 
when  at  last  he  could  get  in  a  word.  "  We  shall  have  the 
sun  before  you  can  say  '  Knife  !  '  The  goin'  is  on  the 
hard  side  at  present,  but  wait  a  bit  and  it  will  be  all  right." 

Somehow  this  announcement  fell  fiat.  His  nieces  failed 
to  beacon  in  response,  which  they  did  invariably,  no  less 
being  demanded  of  them  by  him  and  that  particular  topic. 
A  reaction  to  his  optimism  was  provoked  at  once.  He  was 
only  half  sensible  of  it,  to  be  sure,  but  it  was  sufficient  to 
urge  him  to  fly  to  the  specific  for  his  temperament. 

"  Porson,"  he  said,  glancing  about  querulously. 
"  Where's  Porson,  confounded  old  man  !  Why  don't  you 
bring  me  that  whisky  and  soda,  you  stoopid  ole  feller  ?  " 

"  I  beg  your  lordship's  pardon." 

Already  the  butler  was  toddling  towards  him  with  a 
tray  of  spirits  and  syphons.  The  specific  had  not  been 
ordered  ;  but  as  at  the  moment  of  entry  of  Lord  Bosket 
into  the  house  of  his  brother-in-law  it  was  usually  his  first 
act  to  call  for  it,  experience  had  taught  Porson  to  take  time 
by  the  forelock. 

27 


BROKE    OF    COVENDEN 

Measuring  out  one  half- pennyworth  of  soda  water  to  an 
intolerable  deal  of  whisky,  Lord  Bosket  dispatched  the 
mixture  in  a  consummate  manner  with  one  jerk  of  the 
hand.  He  shut  his  eyes,  and  then  re-opened  them  slowly 
in  an  exercise  of  the  critical  faculty. 

"  Good  water,"  he  said  earnestly.  "  Very  good  water, 
but  the  whisky's  rotten.  Funny  thing,  I  never  come  into 
this  house  but  what  I  have  to  lodge  an  objection.  It 
ought  to  be  brought  before  the  Stewards.  Sort  of  thing 
that  gets  the  house  a  bad  name.  The  whisky's  raw  ;  get 
me  some  turpentine  to  cool  my  tongue.  Have  this  in  the 
keg  ?  " 

"  Yes,  my  lord." 

"  Keep  it  in  the  wood  ?  " 

"  Yes,  my  lord." 

"  'Straordinary  thing  !  Do  you  buy  it  or  do  they  pay 
you  to  take  it  away  ?  " 

"  I  beg  your  lordship's  pardon,  but  this  came  from 
Hipsley  with  your  lordship's  compliments  as  a  Christmas 
gift." 

"  What — what — what — what — what  ?  " 

Lord  Bosket  querulously  placed  his  hand  behind  his  ear. 
The  patient  manner  in  which  Person  repeated  his  statement 
was  no  mean  piece  of  elocution. 

"  You  must   be  wrong  my  boy,  you  must  be  wrong." 

"  I  have  the  label,  my  lord." 

"  Then  send  that  whisky  back  and  tell  Paling  you  are 
to  have  a  keg  of  the  '  special,'  with  the  green  ticket,  and 
mind  you  look  at  the  bung.  Ask  Paling  what  he  means 
by  it.     God  bless  my  soul,  what  are  things  coming  to  ?  " 

This  urgent  matter  being  at  last  adjusted  to  Lord 
Bosket's  satisfaction  he  turned  an  eye  of  petulant  inquiry 
upon  his  nieces. 

"  Which  of  you  little  fillies  has  got  a  birthday  this 
mornin'  ?  " 

Delia  lifted  shy  e\'es  up  to  him. 

"Oh,  it's  the  young  one  is  it  !  May  I  ask  what's  your 
fancy,  miss  ?  " 

"  if  you  please,  Uncle  Charles,  I  should  like  a  horse," 
said  Delia  with  an  air  that  was  very  timid  but  also  very 
decisive. 

2Z 


A   MATRIMONIAL    MARTYR 

*'  You  would  like  a  hoss.  'Straordinary  how  great  minds 
think  alike.  It  happens,  miss,  that  a  hoss  is  just  what  I've 
brought  you." 

"  Oh,  Uncle  Charles  !  "  said  Delia,  with  a  sudden  height- 
ening of  colour. 

"  A  pretty  little  hoss  for  a  pretty  Uttle  lady.  And 
manners — ^well,  I  wish  your  Aunt  Emma  would  take  a 
pattern.     Pretty  bit  o'  stuff." 

"  You  ought  not  to  do  it,  Charles,"  said  Broke.  "  How 
many  more  are  you  going  to  give  them  ?  " 

"  What  do  you  know  about  it,  my  boy  ?  If  now  and 
then  I  can't  find  a  mount  for  my  own  fillies  it's  a  pity. 
What  have  you  got  to  do  with  it  ?  They  are  the  only  ones 
I've  got  and  all  with  a  weakness  for  good  cattle  same  as  me. 
Going  to  hunt  the  fox  this  mornin' — eh,  gells?  We  shall 
have  you  larking  over  those  fences.  Hallo,  there  comes 
Mr.  Sun  !  What  did  I  say  !  Nobody'U  know  there's  been 
a  frost  in  another  hour.  Saw  Padgett  as  I  came  up.  He 
says  the  varmints  are  as  thick  in  the  spinney  as  eels  in 
a  mill  dam.  We'll  have  'em  out  o'  that.  They  shall  put 
their  best  pads  first  this  mornin',  curse  their  little 
eyes !  " 

But  for  once  his  nieces  failed  to  respond  to  his 
enthusiasm.  As  a  rule  eager  faces  greeted  the  lightest 
allusion  of  this  kind,  but  to-day  even  their  interest  seemed 
perfunctory.  He  looked  at  them,  and  then  at  their  mother 
with  his  eye  of  whimsical  inquiry. 

"  They  are  coming,  Jane  ?  " 

"  Not  to-day,  Charles,"  said  his  sister  in  her  mild  accents. 

"  Wh-a-a-at  ?  " 

Lord  Bosket  removed  the  straw  from  his  mouth  with 
extraordinary  resolution. 

"  I  am  sincerely  sorry,  Charles,"  said  his  sister,  with  a 
demure  mischief  in  her  eyes. 

"  Sorry  be  damned.  Are  they  goin'  to  do  five-finger 
exercises,  or  are  they  goin'  to  play  hockey  ?  " 

"  They  hope  to  read  a  little  German  philosophy  with  me 
this  morning." 

Lord  Bosket  returned  the  straw  to  his  mouth  with  a 
resolution  even  more  extraordinary  than  that  with  which 
he  had  taken  it  out. 

29 


BROKE    OF    COVENDEN 

"  Well,  that's  a  good  'un.  That's  won  it.  Jane,  you've 
taken  the  bun." 

"  Charles,  you  grow  too  technical." 

"  Here,  kennel,  kennel !  Don't  you  Emma  it  with  me. 
I  won't  stand  it  from  you,  my  gell.  You  shall  not  begin 
Emma-ing  it,  clever  as  you  are,  because  I  won't  have  it. 
If  I  say  you  have  taken  the  bun  I  mean  it.  The  six  cleverest 
customers  in  the  county  readin'  German  philosophy. 
That's  a  pretty  tale  to  pitch,  upon  my  Sam  !  I  shall  send 
it  to  the  Pink  '  Un.  I  shall  tell  Master  to  put  it  in  the  front 
page.  Why,  my  good  woman,  it  is  the  meet  o'  the  year. 
They  are  runnin'  a  special  from  London." 

"  You  were  kind  enough  to  inform  me  of  it  on  Monday." 

"  Oh,  go  hon  !  "  said  Lord  Bosket,  imitating  his  favourite 
music-hall  comedian. 

His  sister  did  not  relax  a  muscle  to  this  rather  primitive 
form  of  irony. 

"  What  ha'  you  got  to  say,  my  boy  ?  "  he  said  to 
Broke,  feeling  baffled,  as  he  generally  did  in  a  contest  with 
his  sister,  "  You've  got  a  mind  of  your  own,  haven't 
you  ?  " 

"  I — ah,  think  she  is  a  bit  hard  on  them,"  said  our  hero 
with  a  dignified  hesitation. 

"  Oh,  do  you?     Well,  I  think  it's  a  damned  shame." 

He  was  aware,  however,  that  there  could  be  no  redress 
in  this  quarter. 

"  It  out-missises  the  missis,"  he  went  on,  rising  to  elo- 
quence, for  here  was  a  grievance  indeed.  "Here's  the  sun  in 
\)\Tik  and  the  frost  gone  to  ground,  and  everything  as  right  as 
rain,  and  you  are  goin'  to  keep  the  headstall  on  those  little 
gells  and  cram  'em  with  German.  Lord-love-a-duck ! 
I'm  not  much  of  a  hand  at  religion,  Jane,  I'm  not,  but  if 
^'ou've  been  studyin'  how  to  discourage  the  Almighty,  I 
reckon  you've  about  brought  it  off  this  time.  If  you  are 
not  makin'  a  mockery  of  one  of  His  blessed  huntin'  mornin's, 
and  He  don't  send  many,  I'll  never  cock  my  leg  over  a 
saddle  any  more.  It's  monstrous.  Why,  do  you  know 
what  I  said  last  night  to  old  Paimche,  '  Hell-fire  Harry ' 
as  they  call  him  ?  I  said,  '  General,  we're  not  swells,  we're 
not  ;  we're  not  the  Belvoir  and  we're  not  the  Quorn  ;  but 
if  we  can't  show  these  Cockney  sports  a  thing  or  two  I'll 

30 


A    MATRIMONIAL    MARTYR 

hand  in  my  portfolio.  General,'  I  said,'  we'll  have  out  the 
ladies,  and  we'll  have  out  those  little  chestnut  fillies  o'  mine, 
every  damned  Broke  of  'em  ' — those  were  my  very  words 
— 'and  they  shall  show  'em  the  sort  we  are  in  the  Parkshire. 
They  shall  show  'em  whether  we  are  in  the  provinces  or  not. 
No  pace,  haven't  we  !  We'll  give  'em  twenty  minutes  on 
the  grass,  and  if  one  of  'em  can  live  with  old  Vanity 
and  those  little  Miss  Mufhts  o'  mine,  I'll  die  a  blue- 
ribboner.  General,'  I  said,  '  those  little  fillies  o'  mine 
are  not  fashion-platers  they're  not,  no  new-fangledness  and 
general  damned  impudence  in  that  stable  ;  they're  not 
Hyde  Parkers  neither,  none  o'  your  waltzin*  on  the  tan, 
and  they  are  cut  nearly  as  pretty  about  the  muzzle  as  their 
Uncle  Charles,  but  when  they  mean  business  they'll  have 
those  door-handles  o'  theirs  in  front  of  the  devil  or  they'll 
know  the  reason." 

Lord  Bosket  paused  to  reinforce  his  eloquence  by  the 
second  application  of  a  whisky  and  soda.  While  he  was 
thus  engaged  his  six  young  nieces  bent  round  eyes  of 
entreaty  upon  their  mother  to  discover  a  sign  in  her  of 
yielding  to  their  uncle's  rhetoric.  They  could  no  longer 
keep  a  cloak  over  their  feelings,  and  were  compelled  to 
lower  their  pride  a  point.  Their  faces  were  brilliant  now 
with  the  excitements  of  hope  and  fear  alternating  in  their 
hearts ;  and  the  wistful  lustre  of  their  eyes,  which  no  stoicism 
could  now  repress,  came  near  to  lending  them  that  glamour 
of  physical  beauty  of  which  nature  had  thought  fit  to 
deprive  them.  Their  mother,  observing  it,  wished  a  little 
sorrowfully  that  she  held  the  secret  of  making  them  look 
like  that  at  all  times  and  seasons.  But  there  was  not  a 
spark  of  pity  in  that  inexorable  bosom.  They  had  failed 
that  morning  in  a  point  of  their  Spartan  discipline  ;  the 
consequences  were  not  to  be  shirked. 

Lord  Bosket,  stimulated  to  new  valour,  returned  to  the 
attack.  He  was  nonplussed,  however,  by  an  exterior 
which,  mellifluous  and  deferential  as  it  was,  remained 
impervious  to  anything  so  gross  as  the  invective  of  a  male 
relation.  Broke  was  with  him  entirely,  as  he  was  usually 
where  his  girls  were  concerned;  but  had  not  his  ideal 
demanded  that  he  should  remain  neutral,  experience  could 
have  told  him  that  woman  was  a  creature  over  whom 

31 


BROKE    OF    COVENDEN 

human  reason,  even  when  dispensed  by  man,  the  fount  of 
it,  was  not  likely  to  prevail.  Besides,  you  do  not  look  to 
Hannibal  to  usurp  the  functions  of  the  drill-sergeant. 
Therefore  he  was  content  to  restrict  his  championship  of 
the  cause  so  gallantly  espoused  by  Lord  Bosket  to  grim 
laughter,  enunciated  in  occasional  guffaws,  at  the  points 
made  by  that  intrepid  sportsman. 

"  German  philosophy,"  he  said,  thrusting  his  hands  in 
his  pockets  and  growing  quite  querulous  in  his  earnestness. 
"  I  thought  you  were  a  woman  o'  sense,  Jane,  but  you  are 
a  stable  companion  to  Emma.  Part  of  the  '  Movement,' 
what  ?  Haven't  heard  o'  the  '  Movement'  ?  Don't  know 
what  the  '  Movement '  is  ?  It's  the  very  latest.  As  it's 
German  you'll  go  to  a  sausage  shop  to  study  it  of  course, 
now  that  the  missis  has  proved  Shakespeare  to  be  Bacon, 
and  reads  Olhello  in  a  pigstye  to  preserve  the  tradition 
of  environment.  That's  the  ticket,  '  the  tradition  of 
environment.'  She  walks  into  my  snuggery  to  study 
Paradise  Lost.  That's  a  nice  way  to  treat  a  feller ;  I've 
always  been  a  good  husband  to  her.  I  told  her  to  go  to 
the  devO  and  she  would  be  able  to  read  Dante.  If  you 
are  in  the  '  Movement '  and  you  happen  to  have  got  a  cold 
in  the  head,  you  read  aloud  Nietsche  to  your  pals.  You 
pronounce  his  name  every  time  you  sneeze.  There's  no 
savin'  what  we're  comin'  to.  But  it's  a  one-sided  life.  I 
can't  even  have  a  second-hand  motor  car,  but,  bless  you, 
the  missis  has  ordered  a  bran-new  air-ship  '  to  converse 
alone  with  lofty  thoughts.'  " 

"  Noblesse  ohiige,  my  dear  Charles.  A  soaring  intellect 
may  occasionally  be  allowed  to  pay  a  flying  visit  to  its 
native  ether." 

"  Soarin'  intellect  be  damned.  I've  got  a  soarin'  intel- 
lect, only  it  ain't  allowed  to  soar.  I've  got  my  feelin's  the 
snme  as  any  other  worm.  Writin'  men  are  bad  enough, 
but  writin'  women  are  a  curse.  Now  they've  made  her 
the  president  of  the  '  Lady  Lionesses,'  sort  of  inner  circle 
of  the  'Movement,'  don't  you  know;  she  believes  she's 
Doctor  Johnson,  and  her  head's  so  big  that  Spink  has  had 
to  build  her  a  new  tiara,  because  the  old  'un  has  got  so 
small  it  ain't  fit  to  go  to  Court." 

32 


A    MATRIMONIAL    MARTYR 

*'  Poor  Emma !  But  I  always  understood,  my  dear 
Chai'les,  that  she  desired  no  earthly  crown." 

"  So  she  says,  but  she's  got  one  all  the  same,  as  there 
don't  seem  to  be  one  vacant  in  heaven.  But  that  makes 
no  odds ;  it  wasn't  paid  for  by  me  ;  it  was  in  advance  of 
royalties.  But  I'm  leadin'  a  very  hard  life.  Nobody 
knows  what  I  have  to  put  up  with.  One  of  her  latest  fakes 
is  a  '  Salon.'  Don't  you  know  what  a '  Salon '  is  ?  Haven't 
you  heard  of  a  '  Salon  '  ?  Fellers  who  don't  cut  their  hair, 
and  fellers  who  have  no  hair  to  cut  are  always  spendin' 
Saturday  to  Monday  with  us  now.  What  would  you  do, 
Edmund,  if  you  found  fat  poets  with  curly  hair,  and  thin 
poets  with  dank  locks  sprawlin'  all  over  the  place  writin' 
sonnets  to  the  eyebrow  of  your  missis  ?  I  don't  like  it ; 
it's  a  rotten  system.  And  why  they  can't  write  them  at 
home  if  they  have  a  home,  or  in  a  public  house,  or  in  a 
private  asylum,  or  why  they  need  trouble  to  write  'em  at 
all,  I  don't  know.  '  Charles,  you  are  deficient  in  soul,' 
says  the  missis  '  You've  got  no  aesthetic  perception, 
Charles.  Charles,  you  are  given  over  to  the  brute,' 
et  cetera;  and  all  the  time  these  sportsmen  in  their  willow 
pattern  waistcoats  are  lowering  their  eyelids  at  you  and 
sticking  out  their  chins,  and  making  you  feel  that  you  are 
takin'  an  unpardonable  liberty  to  be  on  the  earth  at  aJl." 

"  My  poor  Charles  !     Our  withers  are  unwrung." 

"  Their  necks  are  at  present,  but  they  mustn't  drive  a 
feller  too  far.  I  shall  not  stand  much  more,  I'll  give  you 
my  word.  I'll  let  'em  see  whether  I  am  master  in  my 
own  house,  or  whether  I  am  not.  I  know  I  am  a  pretty 
low  down  sort  o'  man,  I  am  ;  but  when  the  missis  writes 
on  parchment  and  calls  herself  a  Greek,  and  when  she 
jumps  out  of  bed  in  the  middle  of  the  night  to  hunt  for 
'  the  right  word,'  I  tell  you.  Edmund,  I  give  in.  Person- 
ally, 1  am  not  what  you  call  a  gifted  feller,  but  I  don't  have 
to  hunt  for  it,  my  boy.  Between  you  and  me,  life's  a  game 
that's  not  worth  playin'  nowadays.  You  get  laughed  at 
if  3'ou  put  an  aitch  in  Homer  now  ;  and  when  you  were 
at  school  you  got  smacked  if  you  left  it  out.  Emma  says 
that  Homer  didn't  write  his  own  works.  She  says  a  feller 
of  the  name  of  Fitzsimmons  wrote  'em.  I  asked  her  the 
other  day,  just  to  make  a  bit  of  high-class  conversation  for 


BROKE    OF    COVENDEN 

her  don't  you  know,  whether  this  Fitzsimmons  was  any 
relation  to  the  cove  who  fought  Jim  Corbett,  because  he 
must  have  come  of  a  damned  smart  stock  to  have  written 
Homer  and  books  of  that  class.  But,  bless  you,  the  old 
dutch  was  at  me  before  you  could  say  '  knife  !  '  I  was  not 
to  expose  my  Philistinism  ;  and  I  was  interpenetrated  with 
the  lust  of  athleticism,  like  the  immoral  age  in  which  I 
lived.  Fine  talker  that  woman.  And  the  poets  said 
'  hee-haw.'  " 

"  Alas,  poor  Yorick.  If  you  will  let  me  write  the  Sor- 
rows of  a  M.  F.  H.  I  believe  I  can  keep  the  pot  boiling 
for  a  year." 

"The  mornin'  I  married  that  woman  there  might  well  be 
a  change  in  the  weather.  Edmund,  there's  been  a  mistake. 
Jane  and  I  ought  to  have  been  born  the  other  way  about. 
You  and  I  would  ha'  got  on  together  like  a  house  on  fire. 
We'd  be  huntin'  the  fox  all  day  and  playing  double-dummy 
bridge  all  night ;  while  Jane  and  Emma  could  be  sittin'  in  a 
Methodist  chapel  all  the  year  round  readin'  the  Spectator. 
There's  been  a  mistake,  old  son.  It  would  ha'  been  such  a 
simple  thing  for  that  damned  fool  Nature  to  handicap  us  ac- 
cordin'  to  the  code  at  the  beginnin'.  Weight  for  age  and  a 
five-pound  penalty.  But  no,  she  must  try  something  fancy, 
and  as  a  consequence  there  is  no  race.  She  ought  to  know 
better  with  all  her  experience.  There  are  poor  old  knackers 
that  can't  push  one  leg  before  the  other  and  have  never 
won  a  plate,  that  have  got  their  ten  pounds  extry  ;  and 
there  are  smart  young  iive-year-olds  that  haven't  got  an 
ounce.  I  never  saw  such  handicapping  in  my  life.  Why 
can't  she  be  simple  and  straightforvi'ard  and  cut  her  clothes 
accordin'  to  her  cloth  ?  As  for  makin'  a  thing  perfect,  she 
can't.  She  hasn't  got  sense  enough.  She  can't  even  make 
a  hoss,  damn  her  !  It's  either  all  action  and  no  heart ; 
or  if  it  happens  to  be  good  at  timber  it's  a  thousand  to  five 
it's  touched  in  the  wind.  She's  taken  too  many  contracts, 
has  that  old  fool.  Porson — where's  Porson  ?  Come,  my 
boy,  don't  you  see  the  jug's  empty  ?  " 

This  is  no  extreme  specimen  of  the  conversational  style  of 
the  Right  Honourable  Charles  Chevenix,  Thirteenth  Baron 
Bosket  of  Hipsle\'  in  the  kingdom  of  Great  Britain.  With 
incorrigible  naivete  it  was  his  custom  to  meander  amid  his 

34 


A    MATRIMONIAL    MARTYR 

woes,  baring  his  most  private  thought,  withholding  nothing 
from  the  mass  of  self- disclosure  that  enabled  him  to  stand 
as  an  eternal  prototype  :  the  victim  of  the  amenities  of 
conj  ugal  life,  who  yet  appeared  to  derive  a  maudlin  pleasure 
from  his  lot.  Never  was  a  creature  ground  so  small  in  the 
mills  of  domesticity ;  yet  so  graceful  were  his  protests 
against  his  sad  condition  that  a  bloom  of  martyrdom  might 
be  discerned  to  shine  about  him.  A  more  vivid  tint  was 
contributed  thereby  to  the  perfect  flower  of  pathos.  In 
all  his  complaints  he  never  achieved  the  note  of  acrimony. 
He  pitied  himself  profoundly,  but  the  sentiment  of  pity 
was  a  chief  foible  of  his  nature.  The  moment  he  discovered 
a  case  as  grievous  as  his  own.  a:nd  let  it  be  laid  to  his  door 
that  he  often  did,  he  was  quite  as  ready  to  decorate  it  with 
a  chastened  tear. 

Wherever  sportsmen  congregated  his  name  was  a  house- 
hold word.  On  the  racecourse  and  at  the  covert-side  in 
personal  popularity  he  stood  next  to  the  Heir  Apparent. 
Of  every  form  of  manly  exercise  he  was  the  patron  and 
arch-priest.  No  stony  "  ped  "  or  drunken  "  pug  "  ever 
sought  his  aid  in  vain.  He  met  the  acute  pecuniary  need 
of  many  a  fallen  angel  and  light  of  other  days.  Himself 
no  anchorite,  he  dispensed  largesse  among  all  sorts  and 
conditions  of  men.  He  never  asked  who  they  were,  or 
why  they  were  what  they  were,  but  accepted  them  exactly 
as  they  were  represented  to  him.  The  mere  existence  of 
such  a  one  was  an  evil  in  a  decently  conducted  state.  He 
was  an  offence  to  morals  and  political  economy  ;  a  fosterer 
of  the  idle,  the  worthless  and  the  corrupt ;  a  patron  of  all 
forms  of  vagabondage  on  which  the  sun  had  ever  seen  fit 
to  shine.  His  generosity  was  as  bountiful  as  that  of 
Nature  herself.  It  had  been  said  of  him  that  he  would 
give  the  last  half-crown  he  had  in  the  world  to  a  blind 
beggar  in  the  Strand,  casting  at  the  same  time  his  last  crust 
to  the  blind  man's  dog  ;  and  would  then  proceed  humbly 
to  borrow  one  and  sixpence  of  the  mendicant,  that  he 
might  take  a  cab  to  his  "  doss  "  on  the  Thames  Embank- 
ment, the  odd  sixpence  for  the  cabman,  for  it  was  argued 
that  even  in  his  last  extremity  he  would  have  chosen  to 
walk  rather  than  so  far  forget  himself  as  to  discharge  a 
son  of  Nimshi  with  no  more  than  a  legal  fare. 

35 


BROKE    OF    COVENDEN 

Having  now  delivered  his  customary  short  excursus  on  his 
own  hard  case,  a  permanent  injustice  that  required  to  be 
ventilated  every  day,  he  returned  with  new  valour  to  that 
special  tyranny  under  which  he  had  discovered  his  nieces 
suffered.  By  hook  or  by  crook  it  had  to  be  redressed. 
When  he  took  a  charitable  idea  into  his  head  he  could  be 
very  tenacious ;  and  again,  such  olive  branches  being 
denied  to  his  own  domestic  hearth.  Broke  himself  hardly 
cherished  the  "little  chestnut  fillies  "  more  tenderly  than  he. 

"  Jane,"  he  said  with  a  sudden  inspiration,  and  smiled 
a  little  roguishly  to  find  himself  so  cunning,  "  I  suppose 
you  know  it's  likely  that  Wimbledon's  home,  and  he  may 
be  comin'  over  to-day  from  Hazelby  ?  " 

"  Ah,  our  poor  Harry,"  said  Mrs.  Broke  in  her  most 
motherly  voice.  "  Charles,  you  surprise  me.  He  is  so 
seldom  anywhere  since  he  lost  poor  dear  Mary.  Besides,  I 
thought  he  was  at  Davos." 

Lord  Bosket  thought  so  too,  but,  like  Brer  Rabbit  "  he 
lay  low  and  said  nuffin'."  For  it  was  easj'  to  deduce  by  a 
new  animation  in  the  manner  of  his  sister  that  the  case 
had  acquired  a  fresh  aspect.  The  Duke  of  Wimbledon's 
appearances  in  public  had  of  late  been  so  rare  that  when 
one  was  in  the  unhappy  predicament  of  having  six  penniless 
girls  to  settle  in  life  it  was  almost  an  affront  to  Providence 
to  ignore  them.  Therefore  in  something  under  three 
minutes  the  inexorable  lady  had  made  a  concession — a  par- 
ticularly graceful  one  to  be  sure.  Her  breeding  was  much 
too  perfect  to  allow  cause  and  effect  to  obtrude  themselves 
in  her  tactics  ;  but  it  was  a  concession  nevertheless.  After 
all,  it  was  a  fine  morning  for  hunting  ;  the  girls  miist  be 
encouraged  to  preserve  their  sovereign  health  ;  Hegel's 
Lectures  on  the  Philosophy  of  Religion  could  wait  until 
they  returned.     But  they  must  promise  to  be  home  early. 

"  Yes,  mother,"  said  Joan  demurely. 

Still  there  was  a  fine  spirit  in  her  eager  face  as  she  rose 
from  the  table. 

"  Come,"  she  said.  "  Delia,  please  go  and  tell  Simkin 
to  have  Popsie,  the  Colonel  and  Pat  ready  as  soon  as  he  can." 

"  Come  here,  little  gell,"  said  Lord  Bosket,  grabbing 
Delia  as  she  was  hastening  to  obey  orders.  "  Give  your 
Uncle  Charles  a  kiss.     Nice,  shy  little  filly,  is  it  ?     I  told 

36 


A    MATRIMONIAL    MARTYR 

'em  to  put  a  saddle  on  your  new  quad  Twopence  out  o' 
Threepence.  Pretty  bit  o'  stuff.  Have  a  look  at  him  when 
you  go  down  and  see  if  he  comes  up  to  your  big  ideas.  You 
people  are  so  almighty  particular,  you  know,  that  you  can 
hardly  humble  yourselves  to  sit  anything  under  a  National 
winner." 

"  Dear  Uncle  Charles  !  "  cried  the  other  five,  circling 
about  him  on  their  way  to  the  door.  Next  to  their  father 
and  their  brother  he  ranked  as  their  boon  companion.  It 
delighted  them  to  pay  the  toll  he  exacted  of  one  and  all. 

By  what  mysterious  agent  their  mother's  iron  resolve 
had  been  softened  so  suddenly  they  did  not  know ;  nor  did 
they  try  to  learn.  It  was  enough  that  they  were  going  out 
hunting  after  all ;  and  that  their  Uncle  Charles,  notwith- 
standing that  he  swore  so,  and  was  always  calling  to  Porson 
to  replenish  the  whisky  jar,  and  that  he  had  the  funniest 
way  of  talking  that  ever  was  heard,  was  just  about  the 
dearest  and  kindest  man  and  uncle  in  all  the  world.  Of 
course  their  father  was  excluded  from  this  generalization. 
The  deities  are  ver}^  properly  barred  in  a  comparison  of 
mortals.  Whatever  were  the  shining  attributes  of  their 
Uncle  Charles,  his  flesh  being  subject  to  decay  he  could 
wear  no  nimbus  ;  his  place  was  a  little  this  side  the  mytho- 
logical. Their  father  was  one  apart,  a  fabled  character,  a 
myth,  a  hero,  a  figure  of  romance,  a  god  on  a  pedestal. 

"  Those  are  what  I  call  gells,"  said  their  uncle  as  soon  as 
they  had  gone  ;  "  keen  as  the  wind,  and  fresh  as  a  March 
mornin'  !  I  like  the  colour  of  'em.  They're  my  sort. 
I'm  not  much  of  a  feller,  I'm  not,  but  I've  got  a  very  high 
opinion  of  those  little  gells.  Jane,  if  you  go  spoilin'  those 
nice  little  fillies  by  makin'  'em  clever,  you'll  be  sorry. 
You've  got  to  marry  'em,  remember.  And  a  man  if  he  is 
worth  his  salt  won't  look  at  women  of  genius  even  if  they 
are  twice  as  smart  as  the  deuce,  and  four  times  as  ugly. 
Mind  you,  Jane,  I  don't  think  you  will.  I  give  you  the 
credit  of  knowin'  what's  what.  You  are  fly,  my  gell,  you 
are.  You've  got  the  brains  of  this  family,  although  it's  a 
back-handed  compliment  that  is.  But  let's  have  no  more 
cussedness,  if  you  please.  Nice  little  fillies  are  not  to  be 
had  for  the  askin'  ;  and  when  they  are  yours  you've  got 
to  mind  your  '  p's '  and  '  q's.'     And  if  you  are  wise  you'll 

37 


BROKE    OF   COVENDEN 

keep  clear  of  Emma.  That  missis  of  mine  would  give 
Mr.  Plato  his  gruel  in  about  a  quarter  of  an  hour.  She  is 
worse  than  her  Collected  Works." 

A  demure  smile  was  his  recompense  for  this  sage  advice. 
Presently  he  changed  his  manner.  Lowering  his  voice, 
his  confidentialness  which  was  that  of  wisdom  unalloyed, 
acquired  an  insinuation  that  was  not  unworthy  of  a  lawyer's 
clerk. 

"  Talkin'  of  marriage,"  he  said,  "  somebody  told  me  the 
other  day  that  things  had  been  fixed  up  between  our  young 
Billy  and  that  Wayling  gell.  You  had  better  give  me 
the  office,  because  I've  got  a  pony  on  it." 

"  I  think  Charles  at  least  the  announcement  is  a  little 
premature." 

Mrs.  Broke's  smile  was  as  placid  as  her  eyes,  but  she 
had  brought  to  perfection  the  art  of  affirming  a  fact  with 
a  denial  of  it.  Her  brother  at  least  knew  what  construction 
to  place  upon  her  demeanour.     He  laughed. 

"  I've  lost  my  pony  all  right.  Jane,  you  are  fly.  So 
you've  hooked  the  heiress  !  It's  what  you've  been  wanting 
this  many  a  day.  How  you've  kept  body  and  soul  to- 
gether all  these  years  I'm  damned  if  I  know,  as  I  said  to 
Salmon  the  other  night.  Hooked  the  heiress  have  you  ? 
You  are  just  as  fly  as  they  make  'em.  You've  missed  your 
vocation,  my  gell.  If  you  had  taken  those  brains  on  the 
Turf,  you  would  have  made  a  bit.  Suppose  I  had  better 
congratulate  you  ;  you  too,  old  son." 

Husband  and  wife  laughed  without  resentment.  They 
were  accustomed  to  a  frankness  for  which  their  relation 
was  famed  from  one  end  of  England  to  the  other.  Besides 
they  could  afford  to  be  good-humoured.  A  much-coveted 
prize  had  recently  come  within  the  grasp  of  a  bitterly 
impoverished  family. 

Lord  Bosket  seemed  to  grow  thoughtful. 

"  I  am  sorry  for  Bill,"  he  exclaimed  suddenly.  *'  It's  no 
good  savin'  I  ain't.  I  can't  stand  that  Wayling  gell. 
She's  a  righteous  one,  I'm  certain.  Belongs  to  the  missis' 
gang.  In  fact,  if  it  comes  to  that,  I'm  not  at  all  sure  that 
I  wouldn't  prefer  the  old  dutch.  Poor  young  BiUy ; 
you've  my  sympathy,  my  lad.  Many  a  time  will  you  wish 
yourself  a  countei -jumper  at  twenty  bob  a  week  and  your 

38 


A    MATRIMONIAL    MARTYR 

grub  before  you  are  through  with  her.  You'll  be  your 
Uncle  Charles,  my  boy.  I  wonder  how  many  times  that 
damned  old  fool  has  wished  the  same.  Led  me  to  church 
in  blinkers  and  a  halter,  and,  my  boy,  I'll  lay  a  monkey  that 
that's  their  game  with  you.  Pore  feller  !  Pore  feller ! 
What's  the  good  of  tr5dn'  to  be  a  cock  angel  if  you  can't 
grow  wings !  " 

The  nature  of  the  subject  made  a  further  recital  of  Lord 
Bosket's  sorrows  imminent,  but  it  was  mercifully  arrested 
by  the  return  of  his  nieces.  They  were  equipped  with  habits 
of  a  style  somewhat  antediluvian,  and  with  bowler  hats 
battered  into  all  shapes  save  that  of  the  original,  which  no 
doubt  was  antediluvian  too.  Fashion,  however,  did  not 
count  in  their  case.  From  head  to  heel  they  had  the 
indefinable  look  of  the  "  workman."  It  was  a  saying  of 
their  uncle's  that  must  be  allowed  a  certain  truth  :  "  Shove 
any  one  of  'em  into  a  sack,  tie  her  in  with  a  bit  o'  string, 
stick  a  saucepan  over  her  nose,  and  set  her  on  a  boss, 
and  for  style  I  shall  back  that  little  gell  against  anything 
on  two  legs  that  ever  went  on  four.  Out  of  the  saddle 
they're  not  beauties  none  of  'em,  but  in  it  they  are  as 
handsome  as  paint."  And  allowing  for  a  certain  affec- 
tionate partiality,  they  might  well  appeal  to  that  inveterate 
sportsman  who  furnished  of  them  many  a  lofty  description, 
of  which  he  himself,  in  the  opinion  of  good  judges,  was  not 
unworthy.  As  well  as  being  bred  to  the  saddle  they  had 
been  bred  to  the  fields.  They  were  as  natural  and  vigorous 
as  any  creatures  there  to  be  found. 

Lord  Bosket  took  them  round  to  the  yard  to  expound 
the  points  of  Delia's  "  boss,"  "  Twopence  out  of  Three- 
pence "  ;  also  those  of  a  new  "  quad  "  of  his  own,  "  Apol- 
linaris  out  of  Biography,"  which  he  proceeded  to  do  with  a 
child-like  gravity  that  endeared  him  more  than  ever  to  his 
audience.  Subsequently  they  bore  off  their  Uncle  Charles 
to  see  the  badger,  entertaining  him  by  the  way  with  another 
elaborate  and  highly  coloured  account  of  its  capture. 
Afterwards  were  submitted  to  his  inspection  a  ferret,  a 
stoat,  fox,  a  weasel,  a  cheetah,  a  mongoose  and  innumer 
able  dogs,  doves  and  horses,  not  to  mention  a  stable-cat 
blind  of  one  eye  :  a  formidable  family  of  pets  that  were 
called  on  to  receive  his  sanction  about  three  times  a  week. 

39 


CHAPTER  III 
Which  the  Judicious  are  exhorted  to  Skip 

WHILE  our  hero  and  his  attendant  Dianas  are  nego- 
tiating hedges  and  ditclies  in  the  February  thaw,  it 
is  our  duty  to  take  a  shrewder  look  into  his  material  state. 
In  person  fine  and  lusty,  he  was  in  his  mind  the  true 
embodiment  of  feudalism,  as  was  to  be  expected  of  one 
whose  passion  for  the  land  had  congealed  the  temper  of 
his  understanding  into  the  clogging  thickness  of  his  native 
loam.  Had  you  dug  over  his  mind  with  a  spade,  nothing 
would  have  been  turned  up  in  it  save  the  immemorial  lust 
of  possession,  the  pride  of  race,  the  abasement  of  spirit 
before  the  soil,  which  even  at  this  day  rendered  him  as 
foremost  an  Englishman  as  any,  although,  a  little  para- 
doxically, considering  how  our  enlightenment  has  been 
vaunted  before  an  envious  Europe  for  at  least  a  hundred 
years,  he  still  remained  the  essential  type  and  mirror  of 
the  Briton  of  the  days  before  Froissart  and  Chaucer  in  the 
twelfth  century  after  Christ. 

To  reconcile  such  a  one  to  the  peculiar  pinch  of  his  da}' 
and  generation  was  impossible.  Nothing  ;  not  his  wife, 
not  his  friends,  not  his  circumstances,  not  experience  itself, 
that  over-rated  monitor,  conspire  as  they  might,  could 
reconcile  him  to  the  heresy  that  at  the  dawn  of  the  twentieth 
century  of  the  Christian  era,  pounds,  shillings  and  pence 
had  superseded  more  picturesque  considerations  in  point 
of  virtue.  He  could  not  bring  himself  to  believe  that  a 
martial  ancestry,  unsullied  thews  and  a  strong  right  arm 
went  for  less  than  the  arithmetical  rectitude  of  your  greasy 
dealers  in  food-stuffs  and  cotton  fabrics.  He  could  not 
bring  himself  to  believe  that  pre-eminence  before  the 
world  was  the  fruit  of  a  sufficient  sum  in  the  three  per 

40 


THE  JUDICIOUS  EXHORTED  TO  SKIP 

cents,  wrung  out  of  the  sweat  of  the  weak  and  had  no  con- 
nexion whatever  with  a  two-handed  sword  and  a  suit  of 
armour.  That  money  was  the  end  and  the  beginning,  the 
beginning  and  the  end,  was  to  his  mediaeval  mind  as 
fantastic  as  to  suppose  that  a  tradesman  could  be  a  gentle- 
man. It  hurt  him  to  think  that  among  a  splendidly 
practical  people  the  only  gauge  of  your  merit  was  the 
amount  of  your  income.  What  was  the  good  of  tracing 
your  descent  in  an  unbroken  line  from  a  Norman  robber 
or  a  Saxon  one  if  upon  the  consideration  of  a  few  guineas 
persons  who  had  no  particular  insight  into  the  ni}  steries  of 
the  letter  aitch,  and  other  arcana  devised  by  Caste  for  its 
own  protection,  could  trace  theirs  from  Charlemagne  him- 
self, or  good  King  Arthur,  or  an  immortal  husbandman 
and  landowner  of  the  name  of  Adam  ?  Why  have  a  handle 
to  your  name  if  it  was  open  to  all  the  world  to  buy  its 
nobihty  like  it  bought  its  mutton,  and  every  greengrocer 
pushed  a  seat  in  the  House  of  Lords  before  him  on  his 
barrow  ?  In  vain  was  his  voice  uplifted  with  the  ducal 
bard — 

Let  wealth  and  commerce,  laws  and  learning  die. 
But  leave  us  still  our  old  nobility. 

Alas  !  tha<"  lyrical  cry  wrought  no  consolation  in  his  tor- 
mented spirit. 

On  the  other  hand,  to  do  him  no  injustice,  our  hero's 
conception  of  his  own  figure  in  the  world  was  no  unworthy 
one.  His  acres,  his  accidental  status,  his  hereditary  merit 
he  found  impossible  to  reverence  too  much.  He  safe- 
guarded them  as  jealously  as  his  foxes,  his  blood -stock,  his 
turnips  and  his  daughters.  Like  the  ancestral  ivy  they 
gave  colour  to  an  edifice  otherwise  substantially  plain, 
yet  unlike  it  they  were  possessions  which  his  creditors  had 
not  the  power  to  touch. 

Pride,  says  the  moralist,  is  a  weed  that  flourishes  in 
a  barren  soil ;  therefore  the  leaner  our  hero's  condition 
the  higher  it  waxed.  A  very  stalwart  of  a  man,  fed  upon 
our  honest  English  beef  and  ale,  he  had  a  curious  impreg- 
nability to  the  time  of  day.  His  constitutional  misfortunes 
were  a  little  overwhelming.  For  granting  his  pride, 
torpidity,  and  self-esteem,  the  first  of  all  was  to  be  found 

41 


BROKE    OF    COVENDEN 

in  the  hour  the  gods  had  chosen  to  impose  his  personality 
upon  a  slightly  amused  and  slightly  irreverent  world.  As  a 
feudal  baron  he  would  have  been  a  complete  success,  but 
in  his  capacity  of  plain  country  squire  in  the  late  days  of 
Victoria,  with  the  habits  of  his  forefathers  at  the  mercy 
of  a  pecuniary  need  they  had  never  been  schooled  to  suffer, 
the  figure  that  he  cut  was  hardly  so  heroic  as  his  bearing. 
A  king  does  not  appear  at  his  best  with  holes  in  his  coat. 
Poor  Broke  with  his  timber  down  and  a  mortgage  on  his 
manor  house  was  so  thinly  clad  that  he  could  be  seen  to 
shiver  every  time  the  wind  blew.  Those  of  his  neighbours 
who  challenged  his  pretensions  with  a  few  of  their  own, 
acquired  in  several  instances  with  the  painful  and  recent 
suddenness  of  their  millions,  were  already  looking  forward 
to  his  extinction.  The  nearest  of  these,  the  wealthiest,  and 
incomparably  the  most  audacious,  was  one  Lord  Salmon, 
the  latest  thing  in  peers,  whose  views  were  couched  in 
terms  of  a  licentious  nature.  "  We  never  cease  to  cherish 
the  name  of  Edmund  Broke,  the  last  of  the  elect — perfect 
father  and  husband,  domestic  laurel  crowns  his  visionary 
brow,  and  all  that  sort  of  thing.  But  there  are  no  joints 
in  his  backbone.  He  can't  bend.  He'll  be  worth  looking 
at  when  the  crash  comes." 

Broke's  judgment  on  the  adventurous  Salmon  contained 
more  clinching  expressions.  A  man  who  in  his  own  words 
"  began  life  with  a  barrel-organ  and  three  white  mice," 
who  dared  to  put  a  price  on  Covenden,  the  sacred  earth 
of  the  family  of  Broke,  who  dared  to  put  a  price  on  it 
ten  per  cent,  above  its  market  value,  "  because  when  a 
place  fits  my  fancy,  money's  no  obstacle,"  was  a  person 
too  irresponsible  to  incur  the  censure  of  the  self-respecting. 
Rather  he  should  be  laughed  at  temperately.  But  Salmon 
was  too  successful  to  be  laughed  at.  Broke,  therefore, 
had  recourse  to  the  weapons  of  the  weaker  party.  He 
damned  his  eyes. 

Salmon  repHed  by  an  affront  to  civilization.  He  built 
a  mansion  in  the  Victorian  style.  The  lord  of  the  manor 
could  no  longer  pace  his  bare  demesne  oblivious  to  the 
House  of  Salmon.  For  the  seat  of  that  noble  family  had 
been  raised  upon  an  adjacent  hill,  part  of  which  was  appro- 
priated turbary.     The  place  was  a  paradise  of  sanitation. 

42 


THE  JUDICIOUS  EXHORTED  TO  SKIP 

It  was  equipped  with  every  modern  inconvenience,  at  once 
amazing  and  American,  lighted  with  electricity  and  heated 
by  steam,  a  really  high  achievement  in  discomfort,  blushing 
in  red  brick.  Lord  Salmon,  however,  retained  his  self- 
possession  through  all  this  relentless  grandeur.  It  hardly 
excited  him  at  all.  His  candour  still  remained  as  great 
as  his  insouciance.  He  still  remained  the  unassuming 
humourist  he  had  always  been.  He  acknowledged  as 
freely  that  Toplands  owed  its  being  to  the  Semitic  origin 
of  Saul  first  Baron  Salmon  as  that  the  patent  of  nobility 
of  Saul  first  Baron  Salmon  aforesaid  was  the  interest  on 
fifty  thousand  pounds  invested  discreetly  in  the  funds  of 
the  Party  that  most  required  it.  In  apologising  for  the 
unavoidable  absence  of  his  ancestors  he  took  a  simple- 
minded  pleasure.  "  One  can't  have  everything,  you 
know,"  he  was  wont  to  say  with  quiet  resignation.  "  Life 
has  not  been  ungenerous  on  the  whole.  We  keep  a  few 
horses  in  training  and  a  yacht  at  Cowes.  We  dine  at  the 
Carlton  and  hunt  with  the  Quorn.  We  have  a  moor  in 
Scotland  and  a  river  in  Norway.  We  don't  lack  for  friends  ; 
and  Lady  Salmon  says  she  has  quite  a  horror  of  paste.  As 
for  my  ancestors,  I  am  a  man  with  a  Tribe." 

Lord  Salmon  was  the  antithesis  of  his  neighbour.  He 
was  beginning  ;  Broke  was  ceasing  to  be.  He  had  intel- 
ligence, ideas,  boundless  energy  ;  Broke  was  mercifully 
delivered  from  inconveniences  of  this  nature.  Broke's  was 
the  sturdy  limitation  of  mind,  the  admirable  bovine  absence 
of  temperament  of  your  true  John  Bull.  The  one  embittered 
the  life  of  his  head-keeper  ;  the  other  was  a  country 
gentleman.  The  one  endowed  hospitals  and  homes  for 
working  men  ;  the  other  contracted  debts  he  knew  not 
how  to  pay.  Lord  Salmon  was  a  promoter  of  public  com- 
panies, a  radiant  person,  bland,  and  splendid  in  insouciance, 
peerless  in  audacity  ;  whilst  Broke  was  inveterate  in  pedi- 
gree, uncompromising  in  his  gait,  unmatched  in  dignity, 
azure  of  blood  and  very  thick,  consequently  sluggish  ;  a 
caricature  of  a  type,  but  not  without  some  of  the  saving 
graces  of  his  order. 

It  was  an  open  secret  in  the  county  that  Broke  was  on 
his  last  legs.  You  had  only  to  put  two  and  two  together. 
The  depreciation  of  land-values  was  a  heavy  factor  ;   and 

43 


BROKE    OF    COVENDEN 

again,  the  aristocratic  instinct  is  not  to  be  gratified  through- 
out a  term  of  expensive  centuries  without  sooner  or  later 
Threadneedle  Street  asking  for  better  security.  If  only 
we  live  long  enough,  the  most  austere  of  us  have  to  submit 
to  the  discovery  of  coal  under  the  virgin  soil.  The  Brokes, 
a  good  freebooting  family,  had  contrived  in  feudal  days  to 
live  in  purple  and  fine  linen.  They  took  what  they  wanted. 
But  other  times,  other  manners.  Under  Victorian  statutes 
the  strong  hand  was  liable  to  be  interpreted  as  a  felony. 
The  strong  brain  had  superseded  it.  Persons  of  an  ingenious 
turn,  the  Salmons  for  example,  arranged  their  "  booms  " 
and  their  "  slumps,"  "  rigged  "  their  "  markets,"  "  floated  " 
their  "  companies,"  knew  how  to  be  a  "  bear  "  and  when 
to  be  a  "  bull,"  rented  Park  Lane,  had  their  little  places  in 
the  country,  a  convenient  distance  from  town  :  and  were 
able  with  their  indomitable  wealth  to  menace  and  to  oust 
the  county  families  or,  what  they  liked  better,  to  force 
them  to  compromise. 

The  fusion  of  blood  and  brains  was  the  first  condition. 
The  Brokes  lifted  up  their  voices  without  avail.  The 
Salmons  held  the  power  and  did  not  hesitate  to  wield  it. 
The  Brokes  must  perish  or  submit.  The  philosophers 
among  the  ancien  regime  clenched  their  teeth  and  inter- 
married with  the  bloated  plutocrat ;  the  astute  among 
them  made  a  Gilbertian  attempt  to  beg  the  question  of  their 
dignity  by  taking  in  matrimony  the  daughters  of  the  pork- 
packers  of  Chicago  on  the  plea  that  every  American  woman 
is  a  queen  in  her  own  right — a  doubtful  compliment  to  a 
democratic  country  which  yet  seemed  to  please  it  very 
well.  The  Brokes  of  Covenden,  those  stubborn  Die-Hards, 
endeavoured  in  the  meantime  to  pursue  the  even  tenour 
of  their  way,  entering  into  alliances  only  with  those  whom 
they  were  pleased  to  call  "  the  right  sort,"  a  term  of  an 
admirable  vagueness  suited  to  the  character  of  their  ideals. 

Poor  Mrs.  Broke,  with  her  penniless  and  uninteresting 
girls  in  the  market,  was  at  the  end  of  her  wits.  She  was 
too  keenly  alive  to  the  exigencies  of  the  age  to  have 
scruples  as  to  what  direction  they  married  in,  provided 
that  money  had  been  found  there.  But  our  hero,  whose 
exclusiveness  grew  more  inordinate  as  the  occasion  for  it 
grew  less  apparent  to  the  world,  had  set  down  his  foot. 

44 


THE  JUDICIOUS  EXHORTED  TO  SKIP 

They  should  marry  "  the  right  sort "  or  remain  in  single 
blessedness.  In  the  matter  of  her  son,  however,  the  daunt- 
less lady  had  already  achieved  a  success,  notwithstanding 
the  restrictions  under  which  she  laboured.  The  beautiful, 
accomplished  and  absurdly  rich  Miss  Wayling  of  Calow, 
the  last  of  a  line  celebrated  in  song  and  story,  mistress  of 
Calow  Court  and  Crag's  Foot  Priory,  Long  Shafton  Hall, 
and  still  better,  one-fifth  of  a  northern  coal  county,  was 
a  young  woman  whose  eligibility  was  fabulous.  She  was 
indeed  a  match  ;  and  if  report  was  faithful,  her  heart  was 
thrown  in  with  her  shekels  as  a  sort  of  make-weight.  A 
young  woman  of  character,  report  said  also.  Was  ever 
such  luck  as  this  young  man's  ? 

When  her  family  had  at  last  gone  to  hunt  the  fox,  Mrs. 
Broke  was  able  to  devote  her  attention  to  the  remainder 
of  the  morning's  post.  Of  three  letters  that  addressed 
themselves  particularly  to  her  notice  one  was  in  the  hand- 
writing of  her  son,  whilst  the  two  others,  directed  to  Edmund 
Broke,  Esq.,  were  of  a  commercial  nature  and  came  there- 
fore within  the  cognizance  of  his  wife,  who  conducted  all 
the  business  of  his  household  by  virtue  of  her  gift  for 
affairs. 

Her  son's  letter,  thrown  off  in  the  casual  style  so  charac- 
teristic of  its  writer,  was  to  let  his  mother  know  that  a 
brother  officer,  one  Dicky  Sykes,  having  had  the  mis- 
fortune "  to  take  a  tremendous  toss  and  smash  his 
showlder  to  blazes,"  was  compelled  to  give  up  polo  for 
a  time.  He  was  selling  his  ponies  in  consequence,  and  in  a 
disinterested  and  courteous  manner  was  prepared,  purely 
as  an  act  of  friendship,  to  offer  a  pair,  "  the  pick  of  the 
basket"  for  "a  monkey,"  anglice  five  hundred  pounds, 
"  on  the  nail."  He,  the  writer,  was  almost  ashamed  to 
accept  them  ;  it  was  almost  like  getting  them  for  nothing  ; 
but  notwithstanding  the  modesty  of  this  sum  his  "  screw," 
as  he  had  pointed  out  so  often  to  "  his  dear  old  mummy," 
could  only  cope  with  difficulty  with  the  bare  necessities  of 
life,  and  as  a  pair  of  polo  ponies,  however  necessary  to  his 
well-being,  hardly  came  within  this  category,  he  hoped 
"  his  good  old  mummy  "  would  let  him  have  a  cheque  by 
return.  In  a  postscript  not  very  legible  occurred  these 
phrases  :   "I  don't  want  you  to  get  fussing  about  me  and 

45 


BROKE    OF    COVENDEN 

Maud  Wayling.     I'm  not  her  sort.     I'm  a  plane  sort  of 
chap,  and  don't  want  anything  so  clarsy  as  Maud." 

Mrs.  Broke  read  and  re-read  this  letter.  She  laughed  a 
little  and  she  sighed  a  little.  There  was  a  softness  in  her 
eyes  that  might  have  surprised  her  daughters  very  much 
had  they  been  able  to  see  it. 

She  found  the  other  letters  of  a  more  prosaic  kind.  The 
first  was  in  these  terms : — 

"  Edmund  Broke,  Esq. — Dear  Sir,  I  beg  again  to  call 
your  attention  to  the  fact  that  your  account  is  over- 
drawn considerably  in  excess  of  the  securities  we  hold. 
I  am  instructed  by  my  Directors  to  inform  you  that  it 
is  impossible  to  permit  this  deficit  to  be  augmented.  I 
am  further  instructed  by  my  Directors  respectfully  to 
urge  you  to  reduce  it  without  delay.  The  undersigned 
would  be  glad  to  arrange  a  personal  interview  at  your 
early  convenience.  I  am,  dear  Sir,  yours  very  faithfully, 
per  pro  Marr's  Banking  Co.,  Ltd.,  Jas.  B.  Chayney." 

The  second  was  a  little  more  to  the  point : — 

"  Edmund  Broke,  Esq. — Sir,  We  were  much  surprised  to 
have  this  morning  the  enclosed  cheque  on  Marr's  Bank- 
ing Company,  Ltd.,  returned  to  us  endorsed  R.D. 
Unless  we  receive  a  remittance  for  the  full  amount  (£103 
16s.  $d.)  per  return  of  post  we  shall  be  compelled  to  take 
steps  for  its  immediate  recovery.  We  are,  Sir,  your 
obedient  servants,  Denise  et  Cie." 

Mrs.  Broke  was  neither  surprised  nor  embarrassed  by 
such  manifestations  of  the  difficulties  that  threatened  from 
hour  to  hour  to  destroy  them.  She  knew  they  were  on  the 
verge  ;  a  mortgage  on  every  stick  that  was  not  entailed  ; 
and  creditors  knocking  at  the  gate.  For  many  a  weary  year 
this  indomitable  woman  had  been  economizing  to  the  last 
desperate  tarthing,  and  here  at  the  end  of  that  long  period 
ruin  still  grinned  at  them  through  the  holes  in  his  mask. 
He  had  ear-marked  this  family  as  his  own.  Sooner  or  later 
he  meant  to  have  it. 

When  Broke  returned  late  in  the  afternoon  with  his 
tired  and  muddy  charges,  she  engaged  his  attention  in 
the  library,  even  before  he  had  time  to  take  a  bath  and 
change  his  clothes.  She  sought  his  opinion  of  the  letters, 
and  the  steps  he  proposed  to  take. 

46 


THE  JUDICIOUS  EXHORTED  TO  SKIP 

The  dispirited  man  sank  into  a  chair. 

"  I  don't  know,"  he  said  feebly.  "  I  am  always  trying 
for  better  mortgages,  but  land  goes  for  nothing  now. 
Denise  et  Cie  ?     Who  are  they  ?  " 

"  Court  dresses  for  Joan  and  Philippa.  It  ought  to  have 
been  paid  long  ago.  Harriet,  Jane  and  Margaret  have  worn 
them  too." 

"  Yes,  yes,  I  suppose  it  ought.  How  dx)  people  live  on 
nothing  ?  " 

"  We  have  been  doing  it,  Edmund,  for  nearly  thirty  years. 
We  shall  be  obliged  to  let  No.  3  this  season,  or,  if  we  can 
find  somebody  to  take  it,  I  think  it  would  be  better  to  do 
things  thoroughly  and  sell  the  lease," 

"  I  was  fearing  that." 

"  I  am  sure  not  more  than  I.  It  is  so  necessary  for  the 
girls." 

"  Poor  beggars !  "  said  their  father  with  a  peculiar  tender- 
ness. "  Not  much  of  a  show  for  them.  They  have  a  poor 
time  as  it  is.  And  now  they  will  not  be  able  to  have  their 
bit  of  a  season." 

"  I  think  I  may  be  able  to  induce  Emma  to  have  Delia 
with  her  at  Grosvenor  Street  for  May.  They  will  all  be  out 
then.  She  may  have  one  of  the  others  also  :  Emma  has  a 
very  good  heart." 

"Poor  beggars!"  he  repeated,  with  emphasis.  "But 
even  if  we  give  up  No.  3, 1  am  afraid  it  will  not  help  very 
much.  However,  I  will  see  Brefht  to-morrow.  And,  by 
the  bye,  the  sooner  Billy  is  married  the  better." 

"  I  quite  agree  with  you." 

"He  is  not  like  the  girls.  I  have  not  too  much  confi- 
dence in  that  fellow  somehow.  It  would  not  surprise  me 
to  find  him  with  his  heels  over  the  traces  some  fine  morn- 
ing.    He  is  careless  and  extravagant." 

Mrs.  Broke  demurred  with  a  Httle  smile.  Maternal 
tenderness  had  not  the  heart  to  subscribe  to  such  a  strong 
opinion. 

"  Obstinate,  headstrong ;  you  have  to  watch  that  sort. 
It  would  be  nice  for  us  if  he  came  the  same  sort  of  cropper 
that  Charles  did.     I  think  you  remember  Charles  ?  " 

"  Well,  yes,"  said  the  sister  of  Charles  with  a  slightly 
forced  laugh. 

47 


BROKE    OF    COVENDEN 

The  allusion  was  to  the  Right  Honourable  Charles 
Chevenix,  thirteenth  Baron  Bosket,  who  at  the  present 
tender  age  of  his  nephew  William  had  regaled  his  private 
friends  and  shocked  the  democracy  of  his  protesting  country 
by  pledging  his  name  with  that  of  Miss  Maisie  Malone,  a 
star  of  the  Light  Comedy  Theatre.  How  Mr.  Charles — it 
was  in  the  time  of  his  father,  the  late  peer — started  on  a  tour 
of  the  globe  on  the  very  morning  that  the  twelfth  baron 
arrived  at  the  lady's  villa  residence  in  St.  John's  Wood 
attended  by  his  lawyer  and  a  blank  cheque,  a  tendency  to 
apoplexy,  and  a  perfectly  natural  flow  of  English  unre- 
strained, and  how  the  sum  of  ten  thousand  pounds  became 
the  amount  of  the  indemnity,  was  a  page  of  the  family 
history  to  which  Mrs.  Broke  was  still  unable  to  turn 
without  a  shudder,  although  it  had  been  written  years 
and  years  ago. 

"  I  would  lose  no  time  in  getting  him  fixed  up,"  said 
Broke.  "  We  shall  not  be  safe  with  that  fellow  until  there 
is  a  halter  on  him." 

Mrs.  Broke  here  drew  his  attention  to  the  young  man's 
letter. 

"  I  fancy  he  won't  get  his  ponies,"  he  said,  and  upon 
reaching  the  postscript  added,  "  Why,  the  fellow's  a  fool. 
He  doesn't  know  what's  good  for  him.  I  can't  understand 
a  man  in  his  senses  shyinsij  at  a  girl  like  Maud.  Her  mother 
was  a  Fitzurse  ;  the  Waylings  were  on  the  Roll  of  the 
Visiting  Justices  ;  she's  an  heiress  to  boot  and  a  catch  for 
anybody.     The  fellow's  a  fool." 

"  Yes,  but  a  nice  fool." 

"  A  reckless  fool.  A  fool  who  doesn't  care.  Had  you 
knocked  the  nonsense  out  of  him  regularly  as  you  have 
done  with  the  girls,  we  should  not  have  him  parading  his 
tastes  like  this." 

His  son's  letter  had  touched  our  autocrat  smartly. 

"  I  think,  my  dear,  you  overstate  the  case.  I  am  sure 
neither  Billy  nor  the  girls  would  think  of  acting  contrary 
to  their  own  interests.  But  Billy,  manlike,  insists  upon  his 
grumble." 

"If  you  take  my  advice,  you  will  waste  no  time.  In 
some  things  I  don't  trust  that  fellow." 

With  this  final  expression  of  his  wisdom  our  hero  rose 
to  remove  his  muddy  presence  from  the  library. 

48 


THE  JUDICIOUS  EXHORTED  TO  SKIP 

"  If  the  girls  have  come  down,  will  you  please  send  them 
here.  And  please  tell  them  to  bring  their  German  dic- 
tionaries." 

"  Poor  beggars ! "  said  their  father  yet  again  as  he  went 
out. 

He  had  a  deep-seated  pity  for  his  girls.  He  could  never 
divest  himself  of  the  idea  that  they  were  particularly  in 
need  of  it.  He  felt  the  sharpest  pinch  of  his  circumstances 
when  he  reflected  that  they  had  to  suffer  a  poverty  to  which, 
could  his  own  feelings  have  been  consulted,  he  would  have 
been  the  last  man  in  the  world  to  condemn  them.  Then 
their  mother  ruled  them  with  a  rod  of  iron.  It  was  doubt- 
less for  their  good,  since  every  act  of  hers  was  so  just  and 
wise  ;  but  all  the  same  he  did  think  she  was  a  bit  hard  on 
them  sometimes. 

They  filed  into  the  library  with  deep  apprehension.  In 
the  field  fear  had  hardly  a  meaning ;  but  this  room  flanked 
with  shelf  upon  shelf  of  old  grim  tomes  in  which  the  stem 
spirit  of  their  mother  seemed  to  be  invested,  was  the  abode 
of  terror.  However,  this  afternoon  there  was  a  respite  to 
their  real  sufferings,  a  somewhat  painful  encounter  with 
the  German  language,  while  their  mother  read  aloud  that 
portion  of  their  brother's  letter  that  she  felt  concerned 
them. 

"  Your  father  tells  me  that  he  cannot  find  him  a  penny 
more  than  he  receives  at  present.   Have  you  a  suggestion  ?  " 

Had  Billy  desired  the  moon,  the  female  members  of  his 
house  would  have  endeavoured  humbly  to  procure  it  for 
him  with  their  pocket-money.  Even  his  mother  could 
relent  where  he  was  concerned.  As  for  his  sisters,  no 
sacrifice  was  too  severe  could  it  gratify  his  lightest 
whim.  In  their  adoring  eyes  he  was  the  lineal  descendant 
of  their  father.  The  shining  qualities  of  that  god  and  hero 
among  mankind  had  been  transmitted  to  his  son,  the  heir 
of  his  name  and  fortune,  and  also  of  his  immortality. 
Their  loyalty  was  of  the  unflinching  quality  that  generations 
of  their  race  had  rendered  to  the  king.  Billy  could  do  no 
wrong  ;  and  if  a  thought  strayed  into  his  mind,  or  a  deed 
was  recorded  of  him.  it  was  enough.  The  ungenerous  might 
have  suggested  that  this  was  a  delicate  acknowledgment 
on  the  part  of  his  sisters  of  the  infrequency  with  which  the 

49       .  D 


BROKE    OF    COVENDEN 

young  man  was  moved  to  surrender  himself  to  the  incon- 
veniences of  thought  or  action.  But  they  would  have  been 
refuted  fie^cel5^  Billy  was  perfect :  the  kindest,  bravest, 
cleverest,  best-looking  brother  in  the  world.  Than  to 
merge  their  own  desires  in  his  they  asked  no  more. 

"  We  could  sell  some  of  the  hunters,"  said  Joan.  "  Two 
or  three  of  the  thoroughbreds,  Pat,  Whitenose  and  The 
Doctor  might  be  worth  five  hundred  pounds." 

She  spoke  without  hesitation.  Her  sisters  regarded  her 
with  a  wistful  admiration.  She  was  of  the  uncompromising 
type  of  which  history  is  pregnant  with  examples.  She 
would  have  struck  off  her  right  hand  with  her  left  had  it 
ever  chanced  to  occur  to  her  that  such  a  course  was  essen- 
tial. Her  sisters  admired  hugely  this  fibre  in  her,  and 
would  have  followed  her  lead  anywhere,  since  they  had  all 
been  cast  in  the  same  heroic  mould. 

If  to  prove  the  rule  you  insist  on  an  exception,  it  must  be 
the  youngest,  Delia.  To  be  sure  she  was  but  a  child.  But 
again  and  again  the  other  five,  whose  mature  years  ranged 
from  eighteen  to  one  and  twenty,  had  been  forced  to  con- 
fess, tacitly,  in  their  inmost  hearts,  that  they  had  no 
confidence  in  Delia.  They  were  afraid  she  was  not  quite 
one  of  them.  They  had  to  be  very  strict  with  her.  There 
was  something  delicate,  impressionable,  something  that  you 
might  even  call  poetic  and  uncanny  about  her.  She  had 
longer  eyelashes  than  any  of  them,  and  they  curled  up  at 
the  ends  in  the  oddest  manner.  Her  eyes  too  were  bluer 
than  anybody's,  bluer  even  than  Joan's,  with  a  queer 
filmy  sort  of  thing  hovering  above  them,  that  made  them 
very  strange  and  unfathomable.  When  a  thing  like  that 
hovers  about  your  eyes  it  is  hard  to  tell  what  you  will  be  at 
next.  She  had  been  convicted  of  several  misdemeanours 
alread\^  although  she  was  such  a  baby  in  point  of  years. 
You  will  remember  how  that  morning  she  had  contrived  to 
disgrace  herself  on  her  birthday.  Nor  could  you  ascribe 
such  an  incident  wholly  to  her  age.  At  no  time  of  life 
could  Joan,  Philippa,  Harriet,  Jane  and  Margaret  have 
been  capable  of  misconducting  themselves  in  that  way. 

Once  they  had  found  her  in  tears  over  a  fair}'  tale  ;  and 
several  times  she  had  shown  a  tendency  to  read  books  of 
her  own  accord.     Once  she  had  missed  her  tea  because  she 

50 


THE  JUDICIOUS  EXHORTED  TO    SKIP 

was  reading  in  the  library.  What  sort  of  book  it  was  that 
she  read  they  did  not  know,  but  that  it  exercised  a  per- 
nicious influence  upon  her  tender  mind  there  could  be  no 
doubt.  Solecisms  she  had  committed  already ;  but  she 
would  have  committed  others  and  worse  perhaps  had  they 
not  sat  on  her  constantly  and  snubbed  her  dutifully  from 
her  earliest  youth.  For  seek  as  she  might  to  conceal  her 
guilt  there  was  no  glossing  over  the  fact  thaCt  she  kept 
opinions  of  her  own.  White  mice  and  black  rabbits  and 
the  thousand  and  one  delectable  things  the  law  allowed 
them  to  keep  did  not  suffice  for  her.  She  must  hanker  after 
the  illicit  and  differ  from  other  people.  Indeed  the  severest 
thing  that  lenient  man  their  father  had  said  of  any  one  of 
them  had  been  said  of  Delia.  He  said  that  had  she  been 
a  boy  she  might  have  grown  up  to  be  a  Radical. 


61 


CHAPTER  IV 
Lord  Chesterfield  to  his  Son 

THE  next  morning  Broke  rode  to  Cuttisham  to  see 
his  agent.  He  was  in  a  despondent  mood.  As  he 
drove  through  the  February  mists,  and  the  rain  trickled 
into  his  skin,  and  his  horse  ploughed  through  mire  that 
had  borne  his  name  for  a  longer  period  than  history  had 
kept  a  record,  his  thoughts  were  bitter.  Look  which 
way  he  might,  there  was  no  light  to  shine  upon  the  gloom 
of  his  affairs.  Like  the  sombre  weepings  of  heaven,  it 
was  all-pervading.  His  lands  were  rotting  under  his 
feet ;  his  house  was  tumbling  about  his  ears.  Gates  were 
unhinged,  hedges  broken,  farms  tenantless,  fields  lying 
sterile  for  lack  of  the  manure  he  could  not  afford  to  buy. 
All  things  were  s}Tnbolical  of  the  decay  of  him  and  his. 

Never  did  a  man  feel  so  powerless  before  the  cruel 
might  of  circumstance.  He  was  not  cast  in  the  mould 
that  can  grapple  with  two  strong  hands  at  the  throat  of 
destiny.  He  had  been  born  with  a  silver  spoon  in  his 
mouth.  If  he  were  hungry,  he  opened  his  hps,  and  lo ! 
he  was  fed.  He  was  accustomed  to  discharge  all  his 
obligations  to  the  outside  world  by  the  simple  and  ex- 
cellent expedient  of  a  cheque  on  his  bankers.  His  people 
had  been  accustomed  to  doing  it  before  him,  ever  since 
banks  came  into  use.  It  was  their  way,  therefore  it 
was  his.  It  was  unreasonable  to  ask  him  to  devise 
another  when  theirs  was  altogether  to  be  commended. 
Look  at  the  matter  in  what  aspect  he  might,  he  did  not 
see  what  he  could  do  to  retrieve  his  position.  If  he  farmed 
his  own  land,  lie  lost  his  money ;  and  to  induce  others  to 
farm  it  for  him  was  not  easy  in  the  present  state  of  agri- 
culture.    But  a  man  must  live,  and  a  Broke  must  Uve 

52 


LORD    CHESTERFIELD   TO   HIS    SON 

like  a  gentleman.  In  this  age  of  the  plutocrat  and  the 
parvenu  it  behoved  one  of  his  lineage  to  keep  a  hght 
burning. 

His  mood  was '  no  lighter  when  at  last  he  came  into 
Cuttisham,  the  county  town  of  the  shire.  Two  out  of 
three  of  the  passers-by  touched  their  hats  to  him,  and 
tradesmen  kow-towed  from  their  doors,  but  this  deference 
brought  no  balm  to  his  spirit.  If  an57thing,  it  made  his 
depression  the  more  severe.  He  cantered  solemnly  along 
the  cobbles  of  the  narrow  streets,  until  having  turned 
two  corners,  and  having  passed  a  Baptist  Chapel,  a  Wes- 
leyan  Chapel,  a  Methodist  New  Connexion,  a  Bethel, 
and  a  Congregational  Church,  he  found  himself  in  a 
thoroughfare  a  little  narrower,  a  Httle  cleaner,  and  a 
little  faster  asleep  than  those  he  had  traversed  already. 
It  bore  the  name  of  High  Street.  It  was  encumbered 
with  that  air  of  last-century  respectability  which  Mr. 
Addison  would  have  called  "  vastly  genteel."  It  was 
the  locale  of  the  post  office  and  the  bank  ;  of  the  lawyer 
and  the  doctor  ;  of  the  Society  for  the  Resuscitation  of 
Decayed  Gentlewomen,  and  the  Home  for  Indigent  Peers ; 
and,  above  all,  it  contained  the  office  and  abode  of 
Mr.  Joseph  Breffit. 

As  the  sun  is  to  our  solar  system,  in  that  relation  did 
Mr.  Brefifit  stand  to  the  social  and  economic  life  of  his 
native  place.  He  was  the  luminary  around  which  all 
things  revolved.  He  was  the  fixed  star  in  the  local  firma- 
ment, without  whose  sanction  it  was  supposed  the  world 
could  not  be  carried  on.  There  was  nothing  too  great 
or  too  trivial  to  be  outside  the  sphere  of  Mr.  Breffit's 
interest.  If  a  subscription  was  opened  for  a  charitable 
object,  his  was  the  first  name  upon  the  Ust.  If  the  Lord 
Lieutenant  of  the  county  gave  five  pounds,  Mr.  Brefifit 
gave  ten ;  if  the  Lord  Lieutenant  gave  fiftj'  pounds,  Mr. 
Brefiit  gave  a  hundred.  If  a  drunkard  was  sent  to  prison 
for  a  week,  Mr.  Brefiit  was  on  the  bench  to  send  him 
there.  Afterwards  if  he  expressed  a  wish  to  reform, 
Mr.  Brefiit  got  him  admitted  into  a  Retreat  for  Inebriates  ; 
if  subsequently  he  grew  more  licentious  in  his  habits, 
Mr.  Breffit  distrained  upon  his  goods  for  rent ;  if  less 
licentious,  Mr.  Brefiit  took  him  into  his  employ.     If  he 

53 


BROKE    OF   COVENDEN 

died,  Mr.  Brefiit  furnished  the  money  for  his  burial  out 
of  the  Insurance  Policy  he  had  taken  out  in  the  company 
Mr.  Brefiit  represented.  If  he  absconded,  Mr.  Breffit 
signed  the  order  for  the  committal  of  his  wife  and  family 
to  the  workhouse. 

When  a  distinguished  person  came  to  Cuttisham  it 
was  as  the  guest  of  Mr.  Brefiit.  A  lecture  could  not  be 
given  in  the  Town  Hall  unless  Mr.  Brefiit  occupied  the 
chair.  If  the  Rev.  Mr.  Rubbidge,  the  popular  author 
of  Round  the  Ruddy  Rhododendron  Roots,  that  beautiful 
and  tear-compelling  book,  discoursed  on  "  Vulgarity  Con- 
sidered as  a  Paying  Concern,"  Mr.  Brefiit  introduced 
him  to  his  audience  in  a  few  homely  but  well-chosen 
words.  During  those  seasons  when  the  local  members 
were  constrained  to  loose  the  arrows  of  their  oratory, 
Mr.  Brefiit  sat  at  their  right  hand  on  the  platform, 
taking  precedence  even  of  the  Mayor  and  the  county 
magnates.  It  was  his  inalienable  privilege  to  say  "  Hear, 
hear  "  in  the  forensic  pauses  of  these  masters  of  political 
ineptitude  three  times  as  often  and  twice  as  loudly  as 
anybody  else. 

Cuttisham  was  proud  of  Mr.  Brefiit,  and  Mr.  Brefiit 
was  proud  of  Cuttisham.  He  knew  everybody,  and  he 
knew  everything ;  pre-eminently  he  knew  how  many 
beans  made  five.  He  was  a  land  agent  primarily  ;  he 
was  also  a  lawyer,  an  insurance  agent,  a  stockbroker,  a 
dabbler  in  public  companies,  a  breeder  of  cattle  and  horses, 
a  banker,  a  brewer,  a  landed  proprietor,  a  buyer  of  any- 
thing, a  seller  of  anybody.  He  was  a  philanthropist  and 
a  publicist,  a  justice  of  the  peace,  a  guardian  of  the  poor, 
a  churchwarden,  a  county  councillor,  a  colonel  in  the 
volunteers.  In  all  weathers,  in  all  seasons,  a  tall  silk 
hat,  a  white  waistcoat,  and  a  pair  of  highly  polished  brown 
boots,  were  three  articles  indispensable  to  his  attire. 

Not  only  did  Mr.  Brefiit  know  the  business  of  every- 
body in  Cuttisham  almost  as  well  as  his  own,  but  he  knew 
that  of  the  favoured  persons  who  dwelt  in  the  county. 
Further,  he  conducted  it.  Nor  was  it  their  business 
alone  with  which  he  was  acquainted.  He  knew  their 
estate,  their  revenue,  the  personnel  and  Christian  names 
of    their  respective    families,  their  balance  at  the  bank, 

54 


LORD    CHESTERFIELD    TO    HIS    SON 

their  armorial  bearings,  and  when  the  first  cuttings 
were  planted  of  their  genealogical  trees.  It  was  his  boast 
that  he  was  brought  into  perpetual  contact  with  the 
nobihty  and  gentry.  And  as  even  the  most  hard-headed 
and  successful  men  are  prone  to  undervalue  the  things 
they  enjoy  and  unduly  to  enhance  the  things  they  do 
not,  so  Mr.  Breffit,  who  had  wealth  and  a  keen  intelU- 
gence,  set  these  as  nought  in  comparison  with  what  it 
rejoiced  him  to  speak  of  as  blue  blood  and  aristocratic 
lineage. 

Now  the  one  among  his  cUents  to  whom  the  past  had 
been  most  liberal  in  this  matter,  without  a  doubt,  was 
Mr.  Broke.  Persons  there  were  better  endowed  with 
mere  things  of  the  world  ;  persons  of  a  more  generous 
culture ;  persons  of  title ;  persons  more  distinguished 
in  the  public  service ;  persons  of  a  %vider  intellectual 
range  ;  persons  whom  pecuniarily  it  was  a  greater  privilege 
to  know  ;  but  there  was  not  one  among  them  all  whose 
acquaintance  Mr.  Breffit  valued  so  highly  as  that  of  Mr. 
Broke  of  Covenden.  He  felt  that  in  according  to  Mr. 
Broke,  a  plain  country  squire,  the  first  place  in  his  esteem, 
he  did  honour  to  himself.  It  would  have  been  so  easy 
to  reserve  this  particular  niche  for  the  master  of  Hazelby, 
or  the  Earl  of  Croxton,  or  one  among  the  crop  of  baronets 
that  flourished  in  the  shire,  Mr.  Brelht  flattered  himself 
that  where  a  man  of  less  perception,  a  man  of  a  coarser 
fibre,  would  have  been  captivated  by  mere  vulgar  gawds, 
he  could  remain  unbiassed  and  impervious.  Compared 
with  the  Brokes,  their  friends  and  neighbours  were  only 
people  of  yesterday.  That  dotard  on  their  mystic  excel- 
lence did  himself  the  greatest  credit  who  enshrined  these 
symbols  of  the  best  and  highest  as  the  gods  of  his  idolatry. 

When  our  hero  arrived  at  the  plain  brass  plate  that 
kept  the  entrance  to  Mr.  Breffit's  office,  that  astute  gentle- 
man was  seated  in  his  private  room  in  the  company 
of  his  son.  The  father,  small,  grey,  wiry,  without  a 
superfluous  ounce  of  flesh  upon  his  bones,  had  an  almost 
juvenile  eagerness  of  demeanour,  which  sprang  frc»m  a 
mercurial  temperament.  It  was  to  the  peculiar  quality 
of  this  temperament  that  he  owed  his  success  in  life.  A 
many-sided  man  of  affairs,  a  man  of  numberless  interests, 

55 


BROKE    OF    COVENDEN 

it  was  the  feverish  energy  with  which  he  threw  him« 
sell  into  them  that  enabled  him  to  push  them  to  a  suc- 
cessful issue.  He  pursued  the  art  of  turning  an  honest 
penny  with  the  ardour  that  belongs  to  the  baser  sort  of 
genius.  His  was  the  invaluable  secret  of  producing  blood 
from  a  stone. 

The  son  did  not  present  the  pregnant  points  of  the 
father.  Doubtless  they  were  not  there  to  start  with  ; 
but  granting  that  they  were,  they  had  been  slurred  over 
and  defaced  to  the  verge  of  the  invisible  by  the  media 
of  the  university  and  the  public  school.  A  clean-limbed, 
broad-shouldered,  well -set-up,  clear-eyed  young  man, 
he  looked  the  embodiment  of  good  humour  and  perfect 
health.  His  countenance  was  hardly  so  significant  as 
that  of  a  well-groomed  horse,  but  emphatically  it  belonged 
to  his  nation,  his  age,  his  class,  and  his  education.  Slightly 
self-conscious  in  his  simplest  pose  and  the  smallest  action 
that  he  undertook,  extraordinarily  "  afraid  of  giving 
himself  away  " — the  phrase  is  his  own — his  perpetual  and 
visible  ambition  seemed  to  be  to  attain  an  austere  vacancy 
of  feature,  and  a  demeanour  the  perfect  affectation  of 
phlegm. 

He  was  an  average  specimen  of  a  vast  but  not  exhilara- 
ting type.  One  might  spend  a  year  in  his  company,  and 
bear  away  no  more  significant  impression  of  him  than 
tliat  his  hair  was  parted  in  the  middle  with  tremendous 
precision,  that  his  tie  was  of  many  colours,  that  his  waist- 
coat was  embellished  with  gilt  buttons  and  braid,  that 
the  last  button  was  left  undone,  that  his  collar  was  in- 
ordinately tall,  that  he  carried  his  handkerchief  up 
his  sleeve,  and  that  he  turned  up  the  ends  of  his 
trousers. 

Father  and  son  were  engaged  in  an  important  con- 
versation. The  son  was  at  the  threshold  of  a  career. 
Since  completing  his  third  year  at  Cambridge  in  the 
previous  June  the  young  man  had  spent  a  month  in  the 
cricket  field,  a  fortnight  with  the  grouse,  a  fortnight  with 
the  partridge,  a  fortnight  with  the  pheasant,  and  several 
fortnights  in  town  doing  the  music  halls  and  the  theatres, 
in  visiting  his  friends  and  the  friends  of  his  friends.  He 
was  now  about  to  settle  down  under  his  father's  eye.     In 

56 


LORD   CHESTERFIELD   TO   HIS    SON 

his  immaculate  person  and  the  exalted  sphere  into  which 
his  attainments  were  to  lead  him,  the  father  hoped  confi- 
dently that  much  honour  would  accrue  to  them  both. 

"  I've  money,  my  boy,  and  I've  money  to  spare,"  Mr. 
Brefiit  the  elder  was  saying.  "  You'll  never  want  for 
that,  my  boy  ;  you'll  never  need  to  make  a  farthing  for 
yourself.  So  I  don't  see,  my  boy,  really,  why  you  should 
go  into  business  at  all.  Speaking  frankly,  I  am  about 
to  speak  to  you,  my  boy,  very  frankly,  I  think  it  better 
that  you  should  not.  Not  that  there  is  any  disgrace 
attaching  to  it  nowadays,  of  course.  The  old-fashioned 
prejudice  against  '  being  in  trade  '  and  that  sort  of  non- 
sense is  dead.  To-day  really  high -class  people  are  bring- 
ing their  sons  up  to  it,  aye,  and  are  going  into  it  them- 
selves, where  a  generation  ago  they  would  have  scorned 
the  idea.  But  I  don't  intend  that  you  shall  touch  it, 
my  boy.  Safer  not  to,  depend  upon  it,  safer  not  to. 
You  see,  at  present  you  are  just  the  son  of  old  Joe  Breffit  ; 
until  you  have  made  your  way,  and  are  launched  as  a 
country  gentleman,  it  will  be  better  to  run  no  risks." 

Brefht  fils  nodded  his  head  complacently.  The  sug- 
gestion would  "  suit  him  down  to  the  ground."  Kis 
talents  qualified  him  eminently  to  do  justice  to  the  scheme. 
Breffit  pere  drew  closer,  lowered  his  voice,  and  imparted 
his  next  phrase  in  a  whisper  of  unction  and  mystery. 

"  You  see,  I  want  you  to  be  just  the  gentleman,  my 
boy.  That's  the  trade  for  you.  Just  the  gentleman. 
You  ought  to  be  able  to  be  that  to  a  nicety,  considering 
that  I've  done  all  I  can  to  make  you  one.  You  will  not 
lack  for  money,  as  I've  said  ;  and  you've  had  the  educa- 
tion of  a  lord.  You've  got  some  friends  .of  the  right  sort 
already,  and  you'll  have  more,  my  boy,  and  better,  if 
you  will  only  learn  to  play  your  cards.  Always  remember 
the  golden  rule  that  success  is  the  art  of  selection.  There 
are  the  people  you  must  cultivate,  and  the  people  you 
must  cut.  But,  after  all,  tact,  my  boy — tact  is  the  secret, 
tact  and  a  little  money.  Take  a  piece  of  string,  my  boy, 
and  tie  a  purse  to  the  end  of  it  to  keep  it  taut,  and  you 
have  only  to  know  how  and  when  to  jerk  it  for  all  the 
world  to  be  dancing  on  it  like  the  marionettes  you  see 
in  the  puppet  show.     Stand  over  there  by  the  window, 

57 


BROKE    OF    COVENDEN 

my  boy,  where  the  light's  a  bit  clearer,  so  that  your  old 
father  can  have  a  look  at  you." 

A  Uttle  sheepishly  Mr.  Breffit  the  younger  yielded  to 
his  sire's  enthusiasm.  No  artist  in  his  studio  held  his 
glasses  to  his  nose  with  a  tenderer  discretion,  nor  cocked 
his  head  more  lovingly  to  one  side,  nor  manoeuvred  his 
distance  with  a  cunninger  skill  to  survey  a  chef  d'ceuvre 
to  advantage  than  did  Mr.  Breffit  the  elder  before  this 
masterpiece  he  had  himself  created.  The  old  man  rubbed 
his  hands. 

"  Capital,"  he  said,  "  capital !  " 

"  Dash  it  all !  "  said  the  young  man,  reddening  awk- 
wardly. 

"  You  look  real  A  i,  my  boy,  you  do  indeed.  If  1 
didn't  know  better,  I  should  take  you  to  be  the  son  of  a 
gentleman." 

The  son  looked  at  the  father,  and  laughed  with  a  slight 
air  of  constraint.  What  a  funny  old  father  it  was,  to  be 
sure  !  There  seemed  something  strange,  almost  uncanny, 
about  a  father  hke  that. 

"  I  mean  what  I  say,  my  boy.  If  I  met  you  walking 
in  Piccadilly,  and  I  didn't  know  who  you  were,  I  should 
take  you  to  be  the  real  right  thing,  I  should  indeed.  I 
suppose  you  get  that  trick  of  holding  your  head  from 
your  mother.  She  had  a  drop  of  good  blood  in  her,  only 
a  drop,  poor  soul !  but  blood  will  out,  won't  it  ?  " 

Mr.  Breffit  the  younger  grew  a  Uttle  redder  than  he 
was  before. 

"  I  only  hope,  my  boy,  that  you  will  not  neglect  your 
opportunities.  Nature  has  been  good  to  you,  things  in 
general  have  been  good  to  you,  and  I've  been  good  to 
you,  as  I  think  you  will  admit.  I've  spent  a  lot  of  money 
on  your  upbringing  ;  a  man  cannot  send  his  son  to  Harrow 
and  Cambridge  without  having  to  part.  And  I've  paid 
for  you  to  get  into  the  best  sets  ;  not  that  I  grudge 
a  penny.  It  has  been  my  aim,  as  I  hope  it  will  be  yours, 
that  you  should  make  the  right  sort  of  friends — the  sort 
of  friends  that  will  get  you  on  in  the  world.  Now  all 
I  ask,  my  boy,  is  that  you  make  the  most  of  your  oppor- 
tunities. Do  that,  and  I  am  prepared  to  pay  a  lot  more. 
I  have  got  my  eye  on  a  place  in  the  county  that  is  just 

5« 


LORD    CHESTERFIELD   TO    HIS    SON 

coming  into  the  market,  a  regular  fine  place,  Tufton  Hall; 
Poor  Lord  Algernon  Raynes,  brother  to  the  Duke  of 
Wimbledon,  you  know,  is  having  to  sell  it  lock,  stock,  and 
barrel  People  say  it's  speculation  on  the  Stock  Exchange, 
but  I  Know  better,  and  so  does  Mrs.  Dingley.  Now,  my 
boy,  I  am  thinking  of  taking  that  place,  or  buying  it  pos- 
sibly, with  the  cellar,  the  pictures,  the  furniture,  the  stud, 
the  shooting,  and  all  the  bag  o'  tricks.  You  see,  I  want  you 
not  only  to  be  the  gentleman,  but  I  want  you  to  live  accord- 
ing to  the  part.  It  will  be  useful  for  you  to  have  a  place 
where  you  can  entertain  your  friends.  Besides,  it  will 
give  you  a  sort  of  territorial  title  :  young  Mr.  BrefEt 
of  Tufton  Hall,  eh,  what  ?  Now,  what  do  you  say  to  it, 
my  boy  ?     Sound  idea,  don't  you  think  ?  " 

Mr.  Breffit  paused  with  his  hands  on  his  knees,  a  volume 
of  eager  interrogation  in  his  face.  The  son  smiled  with 
a  serenity  that  had  a  touch  of  indulgence  in  it.  He  seemed 
to  think  it  was  a  sound  idea. 

"  You  see,  my  boy,  I  want  to  keep  you  clear  of 
Cuttisham.  It  is  well  enough  for  old  Joe  Brefht,  but 
it  will  hardly  do  for  young  Mr.  Breffit  of  Tufton  Hall. 
I  want  you  to  avoid  the  townspeople  as  much  as  you 
can.  You  will  find  that  the  people  among  whom  you 
are  going  to  live  will  ignore  them.  You  must  ignore  them 
too.  When  in  Rome  you  must  do  as  the  Romans  do. 
For  you  will  be  on  sufferance  among  them  until  you 
have  married  one  of  them  and  lived  down  the  prejudice 
against  you.  There  will  be  a  great  deal  of  prejudice, 
my  boy,  at  first ;  you  will  find  it  uphill  work,  with  all 
your  fine  college  friends,  to  make  good  your  footing,  and 
be  received  among  them  as  their  equal.  For  uppishness, 
for  stiff-necked  arrogance,  there  is  nothing  in  the  world 
to  beat  your  old  county  family,  my  boy,  especially  when 
it  is  encumbered  with  a  short  purse  and  a  long  pedigree. 
'  The  poorer  the  prouder  '  is  its  motto. 

"  There  are  the  Brokes  of  Covendenj  Of  course  they 
were  a  great  family  once  :  important  people  at  the  time 
of  the  Conquest,  friends  of  William  the  Conqueror,  and 
that  sort  of  thing.  But  they  are  no  more  than  a  name 
now.  They  don't  count  a  snap  of  the  fingers  as  things 
go  nowadays,  and  they  are  as  poor  as  the  mice  under  the 

59 


BROKE    OF    COVENDEN 

wainscol  of  a  Methodist  chapel.  But  for  pride,  my  boy, 
for  cold-drawn,  cobwebbed,  crystallized  pride,  I  should 
say  Lucifer's  as  humble  as  Uriah  Heep  in  comparison 
with  Mr.  Broke.  I  know  him,  and  he  knows  me,  but  only 
in  the  way  of  business.  He  looks  on  me  as  being  no  better 
than  a  tradesman  ;  and  although  I  have  been  the  best 
friend  he  and  his  have  had  for  thirty  3'ears,  he  would  as 
soon  think  of  asking  me  to  dine  with  him  as  he  would  his 
butler.  Mind,  my  boy,  I  am  not  saying  a  word  against 
him.  I  admire  him  for  it.  But  that  is  the  sort  of  thing 
you  will  have  to  contend  against,  my  boy.  It  is  no  use 
people  making  money  in  Cuttisham,  and  then  setting  up 
to  be  gentlefolk  in  his  neighbourhood.  Firkin  the  brewer 
did  that,  and  Lohmann  the  pork  butcher,  and  Yardley 
the  linen-draper  ;  but  the  Brokes  take  no  more  notice 
of  them  than  if  they  were  not  there  at  all.  Mind  you, 
my  boy,  I  don't  blame  them  a  bit.  If  I  was  a  Broke,  and 
had  been  in  the  landed  gentry  for  a  little  matter  of  a 
thousand  j-ears,  I  would  not  either.  I  could  afford  to 
keep  my  pride  then,  even  if  I  could  not  afford  to  keep 
my  timber.  Therefore,  my  boy,  you  will  understand 
why  I  want  you  to  dissociate  yourself  from  Cuttisham 
as  much  as  you  can.  Your  old  father  will  be  the  greatest 
enemy  you  will  have  to  face." 

"  Not  at  all,"  said  Mr.  BrefBt  the  younger  with  a  well- 
bred  politeness. 

"It  is  very  good  of  you,  my  boy,  to  say  he  will  not, 
but  we  must  agree  to  differ.  Your  neighbours  will  find 
it  harder  to  forgive  you  for  being  the  son  of  old  Joe  Brelht 
than  if  you  had  crucified  your  mother.  I  cannot  caution 
j-ou  too  sharply  to  keep  clear  of  the  townspeople.  Only 
this  morning  I  saw  you  talking  with  young  Porter,  the 
son  of  Porter  the  bookseller." 

"  Oh,  him,"  said  Mr.  Brefht  the  younger,  with  an  in- 
inflection  in  his  voice  that  delighted  the  parent.  "  A 
bounder." 

"  How  can  he  be  anything  else  ?  His  father  is  a  book- 
seller." 

"  Well,  you  see,  I  happened  to  run  across  him  at  Cam 
bridge.  He  bad  the  infernal  cheek  to  claim  my  acquaint 
ance  on  the  strength  of  our  both  coming  from  the  same  place.' 

60 


LORD    CHESTERFIELD   TO    HIS    SON 

Breffit  fere  stood  aghast. 

"  You  don't  mean  to  say  that  that  fellow,  the  son  of 
Porter  the  bookseller,  was  at  Cambridge  too." 

"  He  was,"  said  Breffit  fils  mournfnlly.  "  Went  up 
to  Trinity  on  a  scholarship,  or  whatever  they  call  it." 

Breffit  pere  rubbed  his  face  earnestly  as  if  to  wipe  away 
the  traces  of  his  incredulity. 

"  I  never  heard  such  a  thing  in  my  life.  It  is 
monstrous.  What  can  the  fellow's  father  be  thinking 
of  ?  You  can  depend  upon  it,  my  boy,  that  trouble  will  - 
come  of  it.  I  never  yet  saw  people  set  up  above  their 
station  in  life  but  what  they  learnt  to  repent  it.  I  cannot 
tell  you  how  often  I  have  watched  it  come  to  pass.  The 
next  time  I  am  in  Porter's  shop  I  shall  tell  Porter  what 
I  think  of  him.  But  really,  my  boy,  I  should  not  have 
thought  that  a  place  with  the  standing  of  Cambridge 
would  have  admitted  that  sort  of  fellow." 

"  Oh,  there's  all  sorts,  you  know,"  said  Breffit  fils, 
trying  to  be  stoical.  "  Some  extraordinary  people  you 
find  up  at  Cambridge  I  can  tell  you.  Why,  lots  of  them 
haven't  been  to  a  public  school." 

"  Ha  !  "  said  Breffit  pere,  breathing  heavily.  "  What 
a  pity  !  I  should  have  thought  an  ancient  seat  of  learn- 
ing of  that  kind,  with  its  traditions  and  its  history,  would 
have  been  as  exclusive  as  possible.  It  is  sad  to  think 
that  it  throws  its  doors  open  to  Tom,  Dick,  and  Harry, 
It  is  no  wonder  that  mere  learning  is  not  thought  so  mucu 
of  as  it  was.  Why,  had  I  known  as  much  as  that,  my  boy, 
I  would  have  sent  you  to  Oxford." 

"  It  is  just  as  bad  there,"  said  Breffit  fils. 

"  You  astonish  me.  I  was  always  led  to  understand 
that  our  universities  were  solely  for  the  education  of  the 
sons  of  gentlemen." 

There  was  a  considerable  pathos  in  the  voice  of  Breffit 
pere,  as  became  one  overwhelmed  by  disillusion.  And 
in  his  face  there  was  astonishment ;  but  in  the  very  flood- 
tide  of  his  distress  there  came  a  knock  on  the  door  of  his 
room.     A  junior  clerk  entered. 

"  A  gentleman  to  see  you,  sir." 

"  Name  ?  " 

"  Mr.  Books,  sir." 

PI 


BROKE    OF   COVENDEN 

*'  Mr.  Who  ?  " 

"  Mr.  Books,  sir." 

"  Never  heard  of  the  man.  Tell  him  I  can't  see  him 
now.  He  has  not  an  appointment.  Tell  him  I  am  en- 
gaged, but  if  he  cares  to  wait  I  will  see  him  presently." 

As  the  boy  closed  the  door,  and  retired  to  convey  the 
information  to  our  hero,  Mr.  Breffit  muttered,  "  One  of 
those  pestilential  touts  for  dictionaries  and  encyclopaedias 
I  daresay.     Not  safe  from  anybody  nowadays." 


"^'2 


CHAPTER  V 
A  Private  View  of  the  Feudal  Spirit 

WHILE  our  modern  Lord  Chesterfield  continued  to 
indicate  those  elements  of  behaviour  which  are 
the  seat  of  success  in  life,  the  grand  exemplar  of  his  teach- 
ing, flower  of  the  English  squirearchy,  sans  peur  et  sans 
reproche,  the  mirror  and  the  consummation  of  what  he 
wished  to  see  his  pupil,  waited  in  the  anteroom  in  his  wet 
aquascutum,  twirling  his  hat  in  his  impatient  hands.  The 
temper  of  the  paragon  was  hardly  at  its  best.  It  had  been 
sorely  tried  of  late.  When  he  left  home  that  morning  it 
had  been  a  little  out  of  its  normal  plane ;  and  now,  as  he 
sat  with  a  pool  of  water  forming  round  his  feet  on  its  de- 
scent from  his  clothes,  he  felt  his  vexation  swell  about  him 
drop  by  drop,  in  the  slow  proportion  of  the  lake  upon  the 
floor.  It  was  an  experience  for  one  of  his  pontifical 
spirit  to  be  kept  at  the  door  by  his  agent.  Such  a 
thing  had  not  happened  before.  It  was  a  trifle ,  yet  it 
svent  against  his  grain  like  a  tradesman's  incivility  or 
the  familiarity  of  a  servant.  It  was  too  impalpable  to 
resent,  yet  it  fretted  his  sensitive  machinery  like  a  speck 
of  dust  in  the  eye. 

Our  hero  was  well  known  to  the  clerks  who  thumbed 
their  ledgers  behind  their  lattice-work  of  glaiss.  With 
nobody  was  the  Guv' nor  so  replete  with  flummery,  not 
even  with  the  Duke,  the  Clergy,  and  Lord  Croxton,  as  he 
was  with  this  red-faced  man  with  the  big  nose  and  the 
great  voice  who  looked  like  a  farmer.  The  Guv'nor  gav*». 
you  pins  and  needles  all  over,  he  fairly  made  you  squirm, 
he  did,  when  he  put  on  his  special  air  and  buttered  it 

63 


BROKE    OF    COVENDEN 

thick  with  this  Mr.  Broke  of  Covenden.  They  began  to 
note  with  trepidation  that  a  cloud  was  darkening  the 
brows  of  the  august  gentleman,  and  that  he  beat  his  knee 
with  his  riding-crop  in  a  manner  not  to  be  misinterpreted. 
At  last  his  impatience  grew  so  visible  that  one  of  the 
clerks  whispered  to  the  boy  who  had  taken  in  his  name — 

"  Porter,  you  told  the  Guv'nor  it  was  Mr.  Broke  ?  " 

"  I  thought  he  said  his  name  was  Mr.  Books,"  said 
Porter  nervously. 

"  Then  the  Guv'nor  don't  know  he's  'ere  !  Go  and  tell 
him  it's  Mr.  Broke,  you  young  fool.  My  eye,  I  wouldn't  be 
you  !  " 

The  unlucky  junior,  a  younger  son  of  Porter  the  book- 
seller, who  had  been  in  his  present  situation  a  fortnight, 
took  this  information  to  Mr.  Brefht  with  a  degree  of  con- 
fusion that  drew  broad  grins  from  his  peers.  In  almost 
the  same  instant  that  the  news  was  communicated  Mr. 
Breffit  bounced  out  of  his  room. 

"Oh,  my  dear  Mr.  Broke,  how  very  distressing!  A 
thousand  pardons — a  thousand  pardons  !  Pray,  sir,  come 
in.  I  had  no  idea  that  you  were  waiting.  That  stupid 
boy  misunderstood  your  name.  Terribly  provoking — 
terribly  provoking !  But  upon  my  word  it  shall  not 
happen  again." 

"  Don't  mention  it,  Breffit." 

Our  hero  paid  no  particular  attention  to  these  apologies, 
but  preferred  to  look  steadily  past  the  gesticulations  of 
his  agent  towards  Mr.  Breffit  the  younger,  who  stood  at 
the  end  of  the  room  with  his  back  to  the  window.  He  had 
never  seen  this  young  man  before ;  therefore  he  regarded 
him  with  the  full,  the  critically  inquiring  scrutiny,  persons 
of  his  type  feel  they  have  a  right  to  employ. 

"  My  son,  sir — pray  allow  me  to  do  myself  the  honour 
of  presenting  my  son." 

There  was  a  note  of  inexorable  pride  in  the  voice  of  the 
father.  However,  so  fully  occupied  was  Broke  in  taking 
the  measure  of  the  young  man  that  this  somewhat  florid 
introduction  had  to  be  repeated  twice  before  he  grew  aware 
of  It. 

"Your  son,  Breffit  ?  "  he  said  at  last,  "ah,  yes,  to  be 
sure !     I  was  not  aware  you  had  a  boy  so  old.     A  likely 

64 


PRIVATE  VIEW  OF  THE  FEUDAL  SPIRIT 

looking  lad ;  let  us  hope  he  will  make  as  good  a  man  as 
his  lather." 

"  He  will  make  a  good  deal  better,  sir,  I  hope  and  trust," 
said  Mr.  Brefht  hastily.  "  My  father  didn't  send  me  to 
Harrow  and  Cambridge  !  " 

"  Harrow  and  Cambridge  ;  the  deuce  !  I  don't  know, 
Breffit,  that  you  are  altogether  wise  there.  There  is  always 
the — ah,  danger  that  an  education  of — ah,  that  kind 
may  give  a  young  fellow  notions  above  his  station  in 
hfe." 

"  In  what  way,  sir  ?  "  asked  Mr.  Breffit  strenuously. 

"  Well — ah,  it  may  give  a  young  fellow  a  distaste  for 
the  desk,  don't  you  know  ?  " 

"  I  hope  it  may,  sir.  With  all  my  heart  I  hope  it  may. 
He  shall  have  nothing  to  do  with  '  shop,'  if  I  know  it. 
I  have  given  him  the  education  of  a  gentleman  because 
I  miean  him  to  be  a  gentleman.  I  have  more  money  than 
I  know  what  to  do  with,  and  I  mean  to  invest  it,  sir,  in 
this  boy  of  mine,  so  that  he  shall  hold  his  head  up  with 
the  best,  and  be  a  credit  to  me." 

"  Well,  there  is  something  in  that,"  said  our  hero  re- 
luctantly. 

As  he  spoke,  however,  a  shade  of  annoyance  passed 
across  his  face.  Talk  of  this  kind  was  painfully  out  of 
harmony  with  his  ideas.  Let  the  cobbler  stick  to  his  last, 
was  one  of  his  firmly  rooted  tenets.  Whatever  would 
become  of  that  sharp  but  inevitable  demarcation  of  the 
classes  and  the  masses  if  this  sort  of  thing  went  on  in 
England,  of  all  places  in  the  world  !  It  was  not  enough 
that  wealthy  Jews  should  job  for  a  peerage  and  found 
a  family  upon  it ;  but  the  butcher,  the  baker,  and  the 
candlestick-maker  must  bring  up  their  sons  deliberately 
to  spurn  the  stool  behind  the  parental  counter,  that  thej' 
too  migrit  acquire  this  precious  trick  of  parodying  their 
superiors.  The  pious  thought  haunted  him  that  it  was 
enough  to  make  his  poor  dear  father  turn  in  his  grave  ! 

Mr.  Breffit,  as  keenly  he  scanned  the  face  of  this  mirror 
of  gentility  to  decipher  the  effect  of  his  audaciousness 
(alas,  that  his  instincts  proclaimed  it  so  to  be  !),  was  only 
too  quick  to  detect  the  grim  glint  that  flitted  about  it. 
He  hastened  to  allay  what  he  divined  to  be  its  cause. 

65  E 


BROKE    OF    COVENDEN 

*'  I  trust  you  won't  consider,  Mr.  Broke,"  he  said,  "  that 
I  have  been  guilty  of  rashness.  I  thought  out  the  matter 
years  ago,  and  1  should  certainly  not  have  given  him  an 
education  of  this  kind  had  I  not  intended  to  keep  him  in 
affluence — in  affluence,  sir,  afterwards.  You  see,  Mr. 
Broke,  he  is  the  only  son  I've  got ;  he  is  very  near  and 
dear  to  me.  He's  my  all,  do  you  see,  sir  ;  and  I  want  to 
be  able  to  look  up  to  him  and  say,  in  the  words  of  Shake- 
speare, the  immortal  Bard,  '  This  is  a  Man  ! '  And.  Mr. 
Broke,  I  may  tell  you  in  confidence,  between  ourselves^ 
sir,  that  my  boy  will  be  one  of  the  first  men  in  this  county. 
It  won't  be  up  like  a  rocket  and  down  hke  a  stick  with 
him.     He  will  be  a  very  rich  man." 

Pride  and  enthusiasm  had  seized  the  father.  A  rare 
scheme  had  been  cloistered  in  his  heart  these  many  years. 
And  now  for  the  first  time,  as  it  burst  into  the  articulate, 
he  was  overwhelmed.  Yet  even  as  the  vaunts  were  started 
on  his  lips  he  was  conscious  that  had  he  been  in  the  enjoy- 
ment of  that  sober  control,  that  unimpeachable  sanity  he  had 
the  right  to  look  for  in  himself  and  the  habit  of  exacting, 
he  would  never  have  infxicted  his  personal  affairs  on  one 
whose  condition  rendered  him  unsympathetic.  Nature,  how- 
ever, cannot  always  be  the  slave  of  policy.  For  once  she 
had  taken  the  liberty  of  asserting  herself  vehemently  in 
Mr.  Brefht.  He  was  slightly  bewildered  ;  he  was  even 
a  little  frightened  ;  he  had  a  remote  sense  of  humihation. 
He  could  not  escape  the  incongruity  of  Broke  confronting 
him  with  compressed  lips  and  sombre  eyes.  However, 
the  power  to  reflect  was  no  longer  his.  Nothing  could 
stay  the  torrent.  Vaunt  came  after  vaunt ;  indiscretion 
succeeded  indiscretion  ;  he  half-apologized,  yet  he  half- 
defied  as  he  exposed  this  singular  ambition. 

Our  hero  gave  him  an  eye  of  oxlike  solemnity.  He  was 
not  accustomed  to  enjoy  an  insight  into  the  aspirations  of 
those  who  served  him.  He  had  not  come  there  to  attend  a 
recital  of  old  Brefflt's  curious  ideas.  Odd  ideas  they  were 
too — on  the  verge  of  moonshine.  Really,  it  was  not  at 
all  like  him.  Rather  pointedly  he  indicated  that  he  was 
there  to  talk  business,  not  to  discuss  the  private  affairs 
of  his  agent.  For  once,  however,  Mr.  Brefiit,  the  man 
of  tact,  the  man  with  the  supple  back,  the  courtier,  was 

66 


PRIVATE  VIEW  OF  THE  FEUDAL  SPIRIT 

obtuse.  Now  that  he  had  opened  that  secret  door  in  his 
soul  it  was  not  easy  to  close  it.  The  long-imprisoned 
torrent  behind,  once  it  had  burst  its  walls,  must  pour  out 
until  it  had  run  dry. 

"  You  said  just  now,  sir,  that  you  didn't  consider  me 
altogether  wise  in  putting  such  notions  in  my  boy's  head. 
But  I  don't  think  you  know  all  the  facts  of  the  case,  sir. 
You  see,  I  am  going  to  buy  Tufton  Hall,  poor  Lord 
Algernon's  place,  for  my  boy  ;  and  I'm  going  to  set  him 
up  in  it  with  ten  thousand  a  year,  ten  thousand  a  year, 
Mr.  Broke,  of  his  own.  And  if  that's  not  enough,  he  can 
have  more,  sir.  I  don't  intend  that  there  shall  be  any 
doubt  about  his  position.  And  although  he  is  the  son  of 
a  self-made  man — I  know  what  /  am,  Mr.  Broke,  as  well 
as  you  do — I  fail  to  see  that  that  should  be  anything  to 
his  detriment.  He  will  have  his  stake  in  the  county  just 
the  same  as  anybody  else,  although  he  may  not,  like  some, 
be  adorned  with  blue  blood,  or  have  a  handle  to  his  name. 
And  I  hope,  sir,  and  trust  that  presently,  in  the  fulness 
of  time,  he  may  marry  in  a  direction  that  his  means  will 
justify,  and  stand  for  Parliament,  and  all  that  sort  of 
thing." 

The  face  of  our  hero  was  a  study.  Had  his  mood  been 
lighter,  he  might  have  been  content  to  be  amused.  There 
really  was  something  to  laugh  at  in  an  ebullition  of  this 
nature  from  a  man  whom  he  had  known  for  twenty  years 
as  a  sane,  discreet,  quiet,  shrewd,  modest,  responsible 
fellow,  who  never  once  had  shown  a  tendency  to  presume 
upon  his  worth.  But  he  had  no  mind  to  be  tickled  by 
anything  this  morning.  He  was  annoyed.  He  was 
annoyed  in  much  the  same  way  he  would  have  been  had 
Porson  bent  over  his  chair  during  dinner  and  whispered, 
"  I  can  recommend  the  brown  sherry,  sir !  "  Could  it  be 
that  Old  Breffit's  mind  was  giving  way  a  Uttle  ?  He  was 
not  so  young  as  he  was.  Or  again,  this  amazing  behaviour 
of  old  Breffit's  was  the  result,  probably,  of  this  money- 
curse,  this  itch  for  lucre  that  was  turning  everything  topsy- 
turvy nowadays.  And  as  soon  as  a  man  did  get  money, 
no  matter  how  he  got  it,  he  gave  himself  airs,  and  seemed 
to  expect  that  the  mere  possession  of  the  demoralizing 
stufi  would  exalt  him  out  of  his  class.     As  though  money 

67 


BROKE    OF    COVENDEN 

made  any  difference.  What  these  absurd  people  could 
not  see  was  that  a  man  was  what  he  was  ;  once  a  bagman, 
always  a  bagman  ;  you  could  not  make  a  silk  purse  out  of 
the  ear  of  a  sow. 

"  Breffit,"  he  said  tartly,  "  I  have  very  little  time  to 
spare,  and  there  is  something  of  importance  I  wish  to  talk 
to  you  about.     I  am  afraid  we  must  discuss  it  alone." 

The  son  flushed  angrily  and  withdrew.  He  was  stung 
by  the  tone.  He  went  the  more  hurriedly  because  his 
father,  instead  of  resenting  it,  began  to  cringe  before  it, 
and  was  actually  breaking  forth  into  apologies.  It  shocked 
and  hurt  the  son  to  hear  him.  This  pompous  overbearing 
old  bird  was  a  bit  of  a  duke  apparently.  But  fancy  the 
guv'nor  taking  it  Hke  that  !  Why  didn't  he  tell  his  royal 
highness  to  go  to  the  devil  ?  A  matter  of  business  he 
supposed.  How  fortunate  he  was  not  going  into  business  ! 
At  that  moment  it  came  upon  him  with  crushing  force  that 
he  would  have  made  a  mighty  poor  hand  at  it.  Insulting 
old  bounder  ! 

When  the  door  had  closed  upon  Mr.  Breffit  the  younger, 
and  Mr.  Brefftt  the  elder  had  been  somewhat  rudely  sum- 
moned out  of  his  day-dreams  by  the  rasp  in  the  voice  of 
his  client.  Broke  plunged  without  further  preface  into 
the  matter  that  had  carried  him  there. 

"  I  am  in  a  tight  place,"  he  said.  "  No,  3,  Broke  Street, 
will  have  to  go.     I  should  prefer  to  sell  it." 

"  A  great  pity,"  said  Mr.  Breffit,  "  a  great  pity." 

"  I  agree  with  you,  but  I  am  afraid  there  is  no  alter- 
native. I  understand  that  further  mortgages  are  im- 
possible, and  by  hook  or  by  crook  I  must  have  some  ready 
money.  The  only  thing  is  to  let  No.  3  go  the  way  of  the 
rest  of  the  street.  Fifty  years  ago  the  whole  was  ours  ; 
yet  now,  as  you  know,  this  is  the  only  house  in  it  still 
remaining  in  our  hands." 

"  Purchaser  preferred,  I  believe,  sir  ?  " 

"  Yes  ;  do  3-ou  want  to  buy  a  town  house  for  your  son  ?  *' 
Our  hero  was  guilty  of  a  rude  attempt  at  the  ironical. 

"  Not  at  present,  sir,  not  at  present,"  said  Mr.  Breffit, 
flattered  by  the  reference.  "  But  that  will  come  all  in 
good  time,  I  hope  and  trust.  And  in  the  meantime,  sir, 
I  think  I  can  find  a  purchaser." 

6S 


PRIVATE  VIEW  OF  THE  FEUDAL  SPIRIT 

"  You  are  a  wonderful  man,  Breffit.  Who,  pray,  is  the 
god  out  of  the  machine  ?  " 

"Well, — er,  Lord  Salmon,"  said  Mr.  Breffit,  with  a 
becoming  measure  of  hesitation.  "  I  am  sure  Broke 
Street  would  suit  his  lordship.  He  is  looking  for  a  house 
a  little  more  commodious  and  in  a  neighbourhood  a  little 
less  doubtful  than  his  present  one  in  Berkeley  Square. 
And  he  would  prefer  to  buy.  I  happen  to  know  he 
does  not  care  to  rent  anything  except  a  box  at  the 
Opera." 

"  Why  doesn't  the  fellow  buy  Buckingham  Palace  ?  " 

"  Indeed,  sir,  why  not  ?  But  perhaps  the  Queen  wishes 
to  retain  it  during  her  lifetime  for  the  sake  of  its  associa- 
tions." 

This  absence  of  mental  guile  had  been  a  valuable  asset 
in  Mr.  Breffit 's  career.  It  was  an  aid  and  a  stimulus  to 
men  of  Broke's  mould,  who  joked  with  difficulty,  whose 
excursions  into  a  ponderous  humour  were  generalh'  accom- 
panied bj'  a  hammer,  a  box  of  nails,  and  similar  instru- 
ments of  a  surgical  nature.  In  the  company  of  Mr.  Breffit 
he  was  in  the  fortunate  position  of  being  able  to  rejoice 
at  the  effect  of  his  own  wit  without  being  under  the  painful 
obligation  of  having  to  explain  it. 

The  name  of  Lord  Salmon  was  the  proverbial  red  rag 
to  our  tvpical  John  Bull.  Nothing  was  so  distasteful  to 
him  as  the  mention  of  that  peer.  Even  the  word  Radical 
was  not  such  a  frank  offence.  The  fellow  was  always 
obtruding  himself  one  way  and  another,  and  there  was 
no  end  to  his  presumption.  The  effrontery  that  could 
dare  to  put  a  price  on  Covenden  was  capable  of  anything. 

"  He  shall  not  have  it." 

Mr.  Breffit  shrugged  a  deprecatory  shoulder  in  reply. 

"  I  am  afraid,"  he  said  humbly,  "  we  are  hardly  in  a 
position  to  be  nice.  We  are  fortunate,  sir, — highly  for- 
tunate— to  have  even  one  purchaser  in  prospect  who  is 
at  all  likely  to  buy  it  on  our  own  terms.  To  Lord  Salmon 
money  is  no  obstacle." 

"So  he  has  been  good  enough  to  say,  provided  a  place 
fits  his  fancy,"  said  Broke,  with  a  grim  face. 

There  could  be  no  doubt  that  the  draught  was  bitter. 
But   the  shrewd   Mr.   Breffit,   old  and  trusted  financial 

69 


BROKE    OF   COVENDEN 

family  physician,  was  convinced  that  the  sick  man  must 
swallow  it,  in  spite  of  the  faces  that  he  made. 

"  Believe  me,  Mr.  Broke,"  said  he,  "  if  you  really  must 
part  with  the  house  it  would  be  suicidal — quite  suicidal — 
to  throw  away  a  chance  that  is  not  hkely  to  recur.  Had 
Lord  Salmon  dropped  from  heaven,  he  could  not  have 
appeared  at  a  moment  more  opportune." 

"  Devilish  good  of  him." 

The  despair  upon  Broke's  face  was  an  acknowledgment 
of  his  own  ineptitude.  Circumstance  had  him  bound  hand 
and  foot.  He  was  as  helpless  as  an  infant  whimpering  in 
the  arms  of  its  nurse.  And  about  as  dignified.  He  was 
accustomed  to  consult  his  will  alone  when  his  self-love  was 
touched  in  the  least  degree.  He  had  neither  the  wisdom 
nor  the  humility  that  can  jdeld  without  a  groan  to  the 
inevitable.  Fate  might  ultimately  break  his  buckram 
soul  in  two,  but  it  could  not  make  it  bend.  By  nature 
he  was  the  grand  seigneur  who  knew  no  law  beyond  his 
turbulent  desires.  He  yearned  to  deal  with  Salmon  as  his 
fathers  would  have  done  in  feudal  days  ;  he  yearned  to 
blow  a  shrill  blast,  and  ride  forth  with  his  knights  armed 
cap-a-pie,  to  pluck  the  head  off  the  body  of  this  audacious 
Hebrew  rogue,  and  nail  it  to  the  gates  of  Covenden,  a 
warning  to  mankind  and  the  winds  of  heaven. 

It  fretted  him  to  the  soul  to  be  at  the  mercy  of  this 
Jew.  The  nationality  made  the  humiliation  greater.  He 
had  the  same  fierce  contempt  of  the  Chosen  People  as  had 
his  ancestors  of  the  twelfth  century.  Nevertheless,  he 
must  have  money.  It  was  a  crude  fact  and  a  bald  with 
which  to  confront  an  institution  that  had  been  accustomed 
to  ignore  the  need  for  it  even  before  the  freebooters  came 
in  their  galleys  from  France.  On  the  face  of  things  did  it 
not  seem  ludicrous  that  the  edifice  which  the  accretions 
of  time  had  raised  about  his  name  should  dissolve  on  a 
question  so  sordid  ?  \Miat  was  money  ?  It  was  only  a 
s\Tnbol :  the  beads  of  the  savage,  the  little  pieces  of  tin  of 
the  heathen  Chinee.  Was  ever  reasonable  mind  beset  with 
issue  so  preposterous  ! 

"  I — ah — suppose  you — ah — must  use  your  own  dis- 
cretion, Brefht,"  he  said  with  a  reluctance  that  made 
no  attempt  to  put  a  gloss  upon  his  feelings.     "  You — ^ah 

70 


PRIVATE  VIEW  OF  THE  FEUDAL  SPIRIT 

— ^must  dispose  of  the  house  to  the  best  advantage ;  I — 
ah — leave  the  matter  entirely  to  you." 

The  agitated  gentleman  mopped  his  head. 

Now  Mr.  Breffit  had  observed  the  conflict  in  the  face 
of  his  patron ;  and  his  tenderness  for  him  was  very  real. 
Our  hero's  status  alone  made  a  powerful  appeal  to  his 
English  mind,  while  the  fact  that  it  was  his  patronage 
to  which  he  owed  his  start  in  life,  and  the  foundation 
upon  which  he  had  built  a  fortune,  consolidated  the  senti- 
ment he  entertained  for  him.  In  a  curious  impersonal  way 
he  had  a  great  reverence  for  Broke,  and  he  did  not  esteem 
him  less  because  he  had  such  an  intimate  knowledge  of  his 
character.  Obtuse,  and  somewhat  limited  in  his  mental 
range,  Mr.  Breffit  was  not  a  fool.  There  were  certain  kinds 
of  walls  through  which  he  could  see  a  considerable  distance. 
He  was  by  no  means  superficial  in  some  things.  He  could 
read  Broke's  prejudices  like  a  page  of  a  newspaper. 

He  saw  the  man  was  bleeding  internally.  Never  before 
liad  he  seen  that  arbitrary  pride  so  distressed.  He  could 
not  bear  to  witness  it. 

"  Mr.  Broke,"  he  said,  "  will  you — er — permit  me  to 
make  a  suggestion.  I  daresay  we  can  adjust  this  little 
matter  without — er — having  recourse  to  Lord  Salmon. 
I  think  I  see  my  way  to  taking  over  the  house  as  an  invest- 
ment against  the  time  when  my  son  marries  and  enters 
Parliament." 

He  was  prompted  by  one  of  those  odd  bursts  of  dis- 
interestedness that  may  sometimes  seize  even  your  keen- 
spirited  business  man.  The  idea  uppermost  in  his  mind 
was  to  spare  his  poor  client.  And  he  would  have  been 
able  so  to  do  but  for  that  unlucky  clause  in  regard  to  his 
son,  which  was  inserted  as  an  afterthought  as  a  sop  to 
his  own  protesting  instincts.  Therefore  the  suggestion 
jarred  upon  Broke  in  much  the  same  manner  as  that  of 
a  thrifty  footman  had  he  come  forward  with  an  offer  of 
hard  cash.  It  was  not  easy  to  play  the  philanthropist  with 
a  man  of  this  kidney. 

"  My  good  Breffit,"  he  said,  "  I  leave  the  matter  to 
you.     It — ah — ceases  to  interest  me." 

Suddenly  he  laughed  discordantly  and  turned  abruptly 
upon  his  heel. 

71 


BROKE    OF    COVENDEN 

"  Good  morning,  Breffit.    I^t  me  know  the  price.    And 
remember  that  time  means  a  great  deal." 

In  this  lofty  fashion  do  the  gods  condescend  to  trade ! 
However,  as  he  moved  to  the  door,  Mr.  Breffit  detained 
him. 

"  I  have  been  asked,  sir,  whether  you  would  accept  a 
seat  on  the  board  of  a  company.  If  you  will  pardon  the 
liberty,  sir,  I  may  say  it  is  an  easy  way  of  earning  five 
hundred  pounds  per  annimi.  You  give  your  name  to  the 
undertaking,  and  you  attend  so  many  meetings  of  directors, 
and  nothing  more  is  required.  I  should  not  have  men- 
tioned it,  sir,  only  nowadays  numljers — numbers  of  the 
best  people — the  very  best  people — do  it  constantly.  In- 
deed, I  can  assure  you,  sir,  it  is  quite  the  thing." 
"  What  does  your  precious  company  call  itself  ?  " 
"  The  Thames  Valley  Goldfields  Syndicate,  capital 
three  millions  sterling.  I  may  say  that  your  brother-in- 
law,  Lord  Bosket,  has  signified  his  intention  of  joining  the 
board  after  allotment." 

"  Indeed  ;  who  has  prevailed  on  him  ?  " 
"  \\ell — er — I  rather  think  the  promoter. 
"  Who,  pray,  is  the  promoter  ?  " 
"  — Er — Lord  Salmon." 

"  I — ah — absolutely   decline   to   have  anything  to   do 
with  it." 

Our  hero  took  a  sharp  step  to  the  rain. 
When  Mr.  Breffit  had  bowed  the  great  man  out  of  the 
door  with  effusive  deference,  and  watched  him  swing  into 
the  saddle  and  canter  away  into  the  mists'  of  the  steaming 
street,  he  returned  to  his  room  with  an  air  of  conscious 
dignity,  and  rang  the  bell.  It  was  answered  by  the  youth- 
ful clerk  who  had  made  the  egregious  blunder  in  his  pro- 
nunciation of  the  great  man's  name.  Mr.  Breffit  put  his 
hand  in  his  pocket  and  pulled  out  a  fistful  of  silver.  He 
selected  two  half-crowns  with  elaborate  gravity. 

"  Porter,  here  are  a  week's  wages,  and  you  are  dismissed.  ' 
I  am  sorry  to  say  it,  Porter,  but  you  are  not  a  youth  who 
is  at  all  likely  to  suit  me.  You  can  go.  Such  a  thing  has 
happened  through  your  gross,  your  abominable  careless- 
ness, that  has  never  occurred  in  all  the  time  I  have  had 
up  my  plate.      And  rather  than  it  should  have  occurred, 

72 


PRIVATE  VIEW  OF  THE  FEUDAL  SPIRIT 

Porter,  now,  I  would  have  paid  you  ten  shillings  a  week 
for  the  term  of  your  natural  life.  Your  ways  are  not  my 
ways,  Porter.  Porter,  you  and  I  must  part.  My  oldest 
and  most  respected  client  !  Mr.  Broke  of  Covenden,  of 
all  people  in  the  world  !  Go  at  once,  Porter  —  go  before 
I  say  something  harsh." 

The  boy,  looking  very  white  and  frightened,  opened  his 
lips  to  make  some  desperate  sort  of  a  reply.  Before  he 
could  frame  it,  however,  Mr.  Breffit  stopped  him  with  a 
majestic  finger. 

"  Not  a  word,  Porter,  not  a  word.  Do  not  aggravate 
your  offence  by  seeking  to  palliate  it.  There  is  nothing 
to  be  said  ;  I  would  that  there  were.  I  repeat.  Porter, 
you  and  I  must  part." 

Tears  were  in  the  eyes  of  the  boy.  He  murmured  some- 
thing, but  the  only  words  that  were  audible  seemed  to 
relate  to  his  father  and  the  disgrace. 

"  It  IS  a  disgrace,"  said  Mr.  Breffit  with  gusto.  "  That 
I  grant  you,  Porter.  As  for  your  father,  I  have  no  idea 
what  he  will  say,  but  he  ought  to  feel  it.  It  will  not  be 
to  his  credit  if  he  does  not.  Ha  !  by  the  way,  that  re- 
minds me.  You  can  tell  your  father  from  me.  Porter, 
that  he  is  making  a  rod  for  his  own  back  ;  he  is  storing 
up  repentance  for  his  old  age.  I  understand  he  has  sent 
your  elder  brother  to  Cambridge.  It  was  brought  to  my 
notice  this  morning  for  the  first  time,  or  he  could  have 
depended  on  it  he  would  have  heard  from  me  sooner. 
I  deplore  your  father's  conduct,  Porter,  I  deplore  it.  Tell 
him.  Porter,  I  deplore  it.  I  call  it  effrontery,  Porter,  I 
call  it  effrontery.  Tell  your  father  I  said  that.  I  don't 
know  whose  son  we  shall  see  at  Cambridge  next.  Has 
Gage  the  greengrocer  sent  his  boy  to  Cambridge  too,  or 
is  he  wanted  at  the  shop  to  take  round  the  potatoes  and 
the  cabbages  ?  When  I  was  a  boy  Cambridge  was  re- 
served exclusively  for  the  sons  of  gentlemen.  This  may 
well  be  called  a  democratic  age.  Impertinence,  pre- 
sumption ;  I  am  very  much  shocked.  Tell  your  father. 
Porter,  that  I  am  very  much  shocked.  But  he  will  live  to 
repent  it ;  do  you  mark  my  words  and  see  if  he  does  not. 
I  never  yet  saw  a  man  give  false  ideas  to  his  children,  and 
seek  to  exalt  them  above  their  condition,  who  did  not  live 


BROKE    OF    COVENDEN 

to  rue  the  day.  And  tell  your  father.  Porter,  that  he  will 
receive  no  pity  from  me  when  that  has  come  to  pass.  Now 
go  ;  and  mind  you  do  not  apply  to  me  for  a  character." 

Very  pale  and  bewildered,  the  boy  placed  the  five  shil- 
lings in  his  pocket  and  withdrew.  He  put  on  his  out-of- 
doors  coat  and  his  mackintosh,  tucked  his  office  coat  under 
his  arm,  and  went  forth  mechanically  in  the  direction  of 
his  father's  bookshop.  He  was  as  stunned  as  though  he 
had  received  a  blow  on  the  head;  he  could  think  of 
nothing  ;  and  although  it  was  pouring  with  rain,  and  every 
now  and  then  the  wind  dashed  it  against  his  eyes,  he  stood 
gazing  a  full  quarter  of  an  hour  into  a  window  that  was 
formerly  a  pastrycook's,  which  being  now  to  let,  had  not 
even  a  stale  pie  to  relieve  its  desolation. 


74 


CHAPTER   VI 

Foreshadows  the  Need  for  a  Hero  and  a 
Heroine 

WHEN  Broke  rode  home  care  still  sat  behind  the 
horseman.  A  closed  carriage,  drawn  by  a  fine  pair 
of  horses,  surmounted  by  a  coachman  and  footman  in 
cockades  and  white  mackintoshes,  rolled  up  and  down  in 
the  rain  before  bis  door.  He  did  not  need  to  look  at  the 
coronet  stamped  upon  the  lozenge  of  this  vehicle  to  learn 
to  whom  it  belonged.  It  was  more  familiar  to  him  than 
consisted  with  his  peace  of  mind.  It  belonged  as  un- 
mistakabl}^  to  his  sister-in-law  as  the  pair  of  serious 
gentlemen  upon  the  box-seat  proclaimed  by  the  angle  at 
which  they  carried  their  noses  that  they  were  part  and 
parcel  of  the  Upper  Ten. 

He  entered  the  dining-room  to  discover  his  family 
at  luncheon.  To-day  there  was  no  meet  of  the  Parkshire 
hounds  ;  therefore  the  solace  was  accorded  him  of  his  wife, 
his  six  daughters  and  Lord  and  Lady  Bosket. 

"  We  are  taking  luncheon  a  little  earlier  to-day,  Edmund," 
said  his  wife.  "  There  is  a  meeting  of  the  Cuttisham  Tem- 
perance Society  at  the  Town  Hall  at  a  quarter  to  three. 
Emma  is  going  to  preside." 

"  Supported  by  me,"  said  Lord  Bosket  in  a  somewhat 
low-spirited  manner.  "  Lucky  me  ;  doosid  nice  to  be  me, 
what  ?  " 

"  Charles,"  said  Lady  Bosket,  sticking  out  her  chin  and 
focussing  her  glasses  six  inches  from  her  nose,  "  I  do  not 
think  your  sense  of  propriety  is  quite  so  keen  as  it  should 
be." 

75 


BROKE    OF   COVENDEN 

"Hear,- hear,"  said  Lord  Bosket  dismally,  as  he  poured 
a  little  soda  water  into  his  whisky. 

Lady  Bosket  was  a  tall,  gaunt  woman  with  craggy  fea- 
tures and  high  cheek-bones.  Her  mien,  colouring  and 
contour  curiously  recalled  the  wasp  ;  and  at  least  many 
a  poor  fly  scuttled  at  her  approach.  Her  countenance, 
however,  the  dial  of  her  noble  mind,  might  be  com- 
pared to  that  of  a  hen.  Not  one  of  your  plebeian  barn- 
door species  be  it  known,  but  rather  a  variety  of  game- 
fowl,  a  very  superior,  high-stepping  hen.  Superiority 
indeed  was  her  prevailing  note,  the  key  in  which  she  had 
been  conceived.  Everything  about  her  proclaimed  it. 
Whether  it  was  the  way  in  which  she  wore  her  back  hair, 
or  the  prose  with  which  she  enriched  our  literature  ;  her 
opinions  or  her  petticoats  ;  the  carriage  of  her  carnal  body 
or  the  conduct  of  her  immortal  soul ;  her  table  manners 
or  her  attitude  towards  religion,  she  was  invariably  une 
freciciise  who  did  not  cease  in  her  endeavour  to  convey 
the  impression  that  although  for  the  time  being  she  might 
be  in,  she  certainly  was  not  of,  the  particular  company 
in  which  she  had  the  misfortune  to  find  herself.  Neither 
talents  nor  integrity  were  secure  against  her  patronage  ; 
and  so  great  was  her  passion  to  be  other  than  her  peers 
that  in  hell  she  would  have  been  an  angel,  while  in  heaven 
she  would  have  been  a  devil. 

It  was  reserved,  however,  for  her  voice  to  be  her  crown- 
ing glory.  As  a  peal  of  bells  may  enhance  the  nobihty 
of  a  cathedral,  whatever  the  splendours  of  its  architecture 
or  the  venerable  aggregation  of  its  years,  so  that  remarkable 
mechanism  gave  the  last  touch  to  the  personality  of  this 
lady.  And  to  pursue  the  sacred  figure  to  which  we  have 
ventured  to  compare  her,  which  after  all  is  the  one  de- 
signed to  please  her  most,  her  voice,  like  that  of  your 
cathedral,  was  right  up  at  the  top.  There  never  was  a 
voice  in  the  world  that  was  poised  on  such  a  dizzy  altitude. 
Ghent,  Bruges,  Milan,  Cologne.  York  Minster,  S.  Peter's 
at  Rome  muftle  their  ineffectual  music  before  this  surpris- 
ing organ.  True  its  owner  carried  her  head  very  high, 
but  how  she  kept  up  her  voice  in  that  latitude  was  a  secret 
known  only  to  nature.  It  was  an  instrument  peculiar  to 
itself ;  ransack  earth  and  licaven  and  it  would  yet  remain 

7b 


THE  NEED  FOR  A  HERO  AND  HEROINE 

unmatched.  It  is  fitting,  perhaps,  that  Lord  Bosket 
should  bear  his  testimony.  No  one  has  acquired  the  right 
to  speak  concerning  it  so  fully  as  the  gentleman,  her  hus- 
band ;  and  certainly  no  one  employed  his  right  with  a  more 
graphic  fervour.  The  law  of  his  country  had  ordained 
that  he  should  dwell  with  it  apart  for  many  years. 

"  The  first  time  you  hear  the  voice  of  the  missis,"  says 
our  epigrammatist,  "  a  sudden  sort  of  feeling  comes 
over  you,  don't  you  know,  that  your  money's  on  the 
wrong  boss.  The  second  time  you  hear  it  you  want  to 
commit  a  murder.  The  third  time  you  understand  why 
a  dog  howls.  The  fourth  time  the  referee  counts  you  out, 
up  goes  the  sponge,  and  you  ask  to  go  home." 

Happily  the  theme  of  conversation  at  the  luncheon 
table  was  of  the  first  importance,  and  less  likely  to  incur 
those  checks  which  more  trivial  ones  were  apt  to  provoke. 

"  Edmund,"  said  Lady  Bosket,  "  I  congratulate 
you  upon  this  affair  of  Billy  and  Miss  Wayling.  It  is  so 
clever  of  Jane.  It  is  a  coup,  Edmund,  it  is  a  coup.  I  am 
sure  I  personally  am  much  relieved  ;  it  takes  quite  a  load 
of  responsibility  off  the  shoulders  of  us  all." 

"  You  will  understand,  Emma,  of  course  that  nothing  is 
settled  yet,"  said  Mrs.  Broke  placidly.  "  At  present  it 
would  be  premature  to  take  it  as  an  accomplished  fact." 

"  People  are  talking  of  nothing  else,"  said  Lady  Bosket. 
"  Everybody  agrees  that  it  is  such  a  providential  thing. 
One  smiles  to  think  how  many  times  one  has  been 
congratulated  personally  on  one's  freedom  now  from 
anxiety.  People  are  unanimous,  Jane,  in  saying  that  your 
cleverness  is  inordinate.  One  may  well  be  lost  in  admira- 
ation  of  your  finesse,  particularly  as  it  is  known  that  Wim- 
bledon had  decided  to  marry  her." 

"  It  was  good  luck  mostly,"  said  Mrs.  Broke.  "  I  be- 
Ueve  the  child  has  a  genuine  liking  for  Billy.  Of  course  she 
has  known  him  for  years,  and  Colonel  Rouse,  her  guardian, 
has  been  a  true  iriend." 

"  It  would  be  too  much  to  hope  that  Billy  has  a  liking 
for  her,"  said  Lady  Bosket.  "  That  would  be  too  much 
like  a  novel,  would  it  not  ?  " 

"  Has  it  never  struck  you,  Emma,"  said  Mrs.  Broke 
demurely,  "  that  mutual  affection  comes  after  marriage 

77 


BROKE    OF    COVENDEN 

as  a  rule.  All  the  most  perfectly  harmonious  unions  1 
know  have  begun  in  that  way.  Surely  it  is  better  that 
marriage  should  be  entered  into  on  the  ground  of  common 
tolerance  rather  than  that  of  passion.  It  is  so  much  safer,  so 
very  much  safer.  Do  you  know,  Emma,  I  am  inclined  to 
consider  it  not  the  smallest  part  of  our  good  fortune  that 
Billy  is  at  present  so  lukewarm.  The  warmth  of  Maud's 
attachment  almost  alarms  me.  Before  marriage  an  exhi- 
bition of  affection  afflicts  one  with  a  slight  sense  of  its 
incongruity.     One  feels  it  to  be  a  slight  forcing  of  the  note." 

"  How  does  it  strike  you  afterwards?"  Lord  Bosket 
asked, 

"  You  are  a  cynic,  Charles,"  said  Mrs.  Broke  playfully. 
"  You  should  be  like  Diogenes  and  live  in  a  tub." 

"  Wish  I  could,"  said  her  brother  with  a  sigh.  "  Pretty 
good  judge  of  the  game,  that  chap.  No  room  for  two  in 
his  little  box." 

"  I  am  immensely  satisfied  with  girls  of  the  Miss  Wayling 
type,"  said  Lady  Bosket  in  her  most  detached  voice.  "  She 
is  such  a  beautiful  intellectual  creature,  and  very  finely 
chiselled.  She  has  that  statuesque  marble  purity  which  isreally 
quite  impregnated  with  Greek  feeling.  It  refreshes  one's 
aching  senses  to  gaze  on  a  creature  so  coldly,  so  chastely 
classical  after  they  have  been  wearied  by  a  surfeit  of  the 
animal,  "  horsey,"  fin  de  Steele  women  that  one  is  con- 
fronted with  everywhere  at  the  present  day." 

Lady  Bosket  paused  to  put  up  her  glasses,  and  ingeni- 
ously manipulated  them  in  such  a  manner  that  she  could 
stare  at  all  her  six  nieces  at  once.  Five  of  them  quailed 
and  lowered  their  scarlet  faces  to  their  plates  before  the 
extraordinary  resolution  of  her  gaze,  but  Joan  the 
eldest,  the  one  with  the  Roman  spirit,  happened  to  be 
drinking  a  glass  of  water.  She  suspended  that  operation 
for  a  moment  and  met  her  aunt's  insolent  scrutiny  with  a 
fearless  one  of  her  own. 

"  Aunty  means  that  for  you  Httle  gells,"  said  their  tender- 
hearted but  very  tactless  uncle  Charles,  who  was  so  sensi- 
tive that  anything  that  gave  pain  to  objects  for  which 
he  had  an  affection,  hurt  him  also.  "  That's  a  dig  at  you  ; 
but  don't  you  mind  it ;  I  don't ;  it's  only  her  fun.  I'll 
bring  you  some  chocolate  creams  to-morrow  ;  you  know — 


THE  NEED  FOR  A  HERO  AND  HEROINE 

the  sort  in  the  pink  boxes  tied  with  bhae  string.     And 
I'll  lend  you  Bobtail  when  she  gets  her  leg  all  right." 

He  sighed,  and  reflectively  helped  himself  to  whisky. 

■*  Charles,"  said  Lady  Bosket,  "  you  have  already  par- 
taken of  four  glasses  of  whisky  during  luncheon.  I  must 
ask  you  in  the  name  of  decency  to  keep,  in  my  presence 
at  least,  not  to  mention  the  presence  of  Jane  and  the 
girls,  a  check  upon  your  diseased  appetite." 

This  fiat  was  accompanied  with  much  preening  of  plu- 
mage. The  stately  lady  then  sat  up  more  rigidly  in  her 
chair  with  an  air  of  satisfaction  that  had  something  in 
common  with  that  of  an  owl  in  a  ruin  who  has  just  eaten  a 
bat. 

"  Damn  it,"  said  Lord  Bosket  pensively. 

He  proceeded  to  pour  out  soda-water  into  a  clean  glass. 
But  presently  having  drunk  that  unsatisfactory  beverage, 
in  a  fit  of  absence  of  mind  he  raised  the  first  tumbler  con- 
taining the  forbidden  whisky  to  his  lips,  and  drank  it  neat. 
Fortunately  Lady  Bosket  was  too  much  occupied  with  the 
part  she  was  sustaining  in  the  conversation  to  observe 
this  lapse. 

It  was  Mrs.  Broke's  constant  aim  when  these  near  rela- 
tions sat  at  her  table  to  remain  a  neutral  and  to  steer  the 
talk  into  channels  unvexed  by  the  waters  of  controversy. 

"  What  is  going  to  be  done  with  Tuf ton  ?  have  you  heard, 
Mun  ?  "  she  asked,  assuming  a  sudden  air  of  animation. 

"  Breffit  told  me  this  morning  that  he  was  going  to  buy 
it,"  said  Broke. 

"  For  whom  ?  " 

"  For  his  son." 

"  For  his  son  !  * 

Mrs.  Broke's  face  was  frankly  incredulous: 

"  Who.  pray,  is  Breffit  ?  "  asked  Lady  Bosket; 

"  Surely  you  know  Breffit,  the  land  agent,"  said  Broke. 
"  I  thought  everybody  knew  old  Breffit.  He  is  a  cha- 
racter." 

Lady  Bosket  reflected  with  the  aid  of  her  glasses. 

"  The  weird  old  gentleman  who  embellishes  his  person 
with  a  tall  hat,  a  white  waistcoat,  brown  boats  and  a  frock 
coat,  and  is  said  to  wear  a  wig,"  said  Mrs.  Broke.  "  In 
his  way  he  is  a  celebrity." 

79 


BROKE    OF    COVENDEN 

**  Oh — ^h,"  said  Lady  Bosket  drawing  a  deep  breath; 

"  The  old  gentleman  who  always  peers  very  hard  into 
one's  face  and  seems  as  though  he  is  about  to  burst  into 
tears  when  he  talks  to  one,"  said  Mrs.  Broke  with  a  smile. 
"  The  old  gentleman  who  has  ideas  of  his  own  on  the  use 
and  abuse  of  the  letter  '  h.'  " 

"  That  man,"  said  Lady  Bosket.  "  Do  you  mean  to 
tell  me  he  has  bought  Tufton,  that  poor  Algernon's  people 
have  had  since  the  time  of  Charles  the  Second,  and  that 
he  proposes  to  put  his  son  in  it  ?  " 

"  I  do,"  said  Broke  grimly.  "  He  was  good  enough  to 
tell  me  this  morning  that  he  was  going  to  set  his  son  up 
in  the  ah — county  in  such  a  manner  that  he — ah  could  hold 
his  head  up  with  the  best " 

"  Don't,  my  dear  Edmund,  don't !  "  implored  Lady 
Bosket  piteously  as  with  a  grimace  she  elevated  her  high 
shoulders  and  pressed  her  fingers  to  her  sensitive  ears. 
"  Spare  us  the  cant  terms  of  the  snobocracy." 

"  I  am  only  repeating  his  words,"  said  Broke  with  a  cold 
chuckle.  "  I  had  the  honour  of  an  introduction  to  the 
young  man  this  morning." 

"  My  dear  Edmund  !  "  said  Lady  Bosket. 

"  I  daresay  Mr,  Breffit  intends  that  you  shall  be  his 
sponsor  in  his  progress  through  the  purlieus  of  the  social 
world,"  said  Mrs.  Broke,  expanding  her  smile.  "  When 
the  worst  comes  to  the  worst  and  we  are  cast  penniless  upon 
the  streets,  as  I  suppose  we  must  be  in  the  end,  we  shall 
be  able  to  keep  body  and  soul  together  by  pla5dng  Mentor 
to  these  youthful  Telemachuses.  You,  my  dear  Edmund, 
will  be  allotted  the  department  for  the  Social  Advancement 
of  the  sons  of  Local  Tradespeople,  while  I  can  open  a  Bureau 
for  the  Presentation  at  Court  of  the  American  Miss,  with 
Huxihary  branches  for  the  Polishing  of  Popper  and  Mommer. 
And  I  can  fill  up  the  rest  of  my  time  with  the  introduction 
into  Good  Society  of  All  and  Sundry  ;  and  you,  my  dear 
Edmund,  can  fill  up  yours  by  being  a  director  of  Limited 
Liability  Companies  under  the  aegis  of  our  friend 
Lord  Salmon,  which  reminds  me,  Edmund,  that  I  have 
already  made  a  promise  to  him  that  you  will  accept  a  seat 
on  the  Board  of  the  Thames  Valley  Goldfields  Syndicate,  in 
consideration  of  which  charming   piece   of   condescension 

80 


THE  NEED  FOR  A  HERO  AND  HEROINE 

your  means  are  to  be  augmented  to  the  extent  of  five 
hundred  pounds  a  year.  From  which,  Emma,  you  will 
gather  that,  desperately  reduced  as  we  are,  we  are  not 
wholly  without  resources." 

"  I  protest,  Jane,  you  are  growing  quite  debased,"  said 
her  sister-in-law. 

"  Mrs.  Chapone  informs  us  it  is  vulgar  to  make  use  of 
a  proverbial  expression,  but  needs  must  when  the  devil 
drives,"  said  Mrs.  Broke  meekly. 

"  What  is  that,  Jane  ?  "  Broke  interposed  gruffly.  "  You 
have  made  a  promise  to — ah,  that  fellow  Salmon  ?  Why 
Breffit  approached  me  this  morning  on — ah,  that  very 
subject,  and  I  refused  point  blank.  Do  you  expect  me 
to  engage  my  name  with  that  of  a  Jew  ?  What  are  you 
thinking  of,  woman  ?  " 

"  The  butcher  and  the  baker,  the  rates  and  the  taxes. 
You  must  come  off  the  high  horse,  my  dear,  you  must 
indeed.  As  I  have  been  pointing  out  to  you  so  often 
lately,  you  can  no  longer  afford  to  ride  the  noble  quadruped. 
Five  hundred  a  year  is  five  hundred  a  year  to  paupers  like 
ourselves.  Lord  Salmon  has  very  kindly  promised  to  come 
this  afternoon  to  discuss  the  subject  with  you." 

"  I  decline  to  see  him," 

"  Don't  be  more  impracticable,  my  love,  than  you  can 
help." 

"  Shorten  rein  a  bit,  Edmund,"  interposed  Lord  Bosket. 
"  Salmon  is  not  such  a  bad  feller.  People  can  say  what  they 
like,  but  you  can  take  it  from  me  that  Salmon's  all  right. 
He  preserves  his  foxes  and  lays  down  his  pheasants,  and  he 
doesn't  play  a  bad  hand  at  bridge.  The  feller's  all  right, 
I  tell  you  ;  it's  not  fair  to  ask  more  of  any  man.  He  don't 
pretend  to  be  an  Assheton  Smith  in  the  saddle ;  and  when 
he  does  bag  a  keeper  he  always  does  the  handsome  thing. 
Nobod}'  can  deny  that  he  drives  good  cattle,  aye,  and 
owns  it  too,  and  he  pays  his  footin'  to  the  Hunt  like  a 
sportsman." 

"  He  paid  his  footing  to  the  peerage  too.  No — ah, 
Salmons  for  me,  thank  you." 

"  Woa,  easy,  easy  !  "  said  Lord  Bosket  in  the  caressing 
voice  he  used  to  his  alarmed  young  horses  when  they 
pricked  up  their  ears  and  pranced  before  the  motor  car. 

8i  F 


BROKE    OF    COVENDEN 

"  Easy,  my  boy.  Everybody's  got  to  have  a  beginning  J 
even  you  and  Emma  had  to  have  a  beginning.  If  a  boss 
is  a  tidy  fencer,  I'm  not  the  one  to  look  at  the  stud-book 
I'm  not.  Take  my  word  for  it,  Sahnon's  all  right.  I'm 
goin'  on  the  board  myself." 

"  Charles,  I  forbid  you  absolutely  to  do  anything  of  the 
kind,"  said  Lady  Bosket. 

"  Jane,"  said  Broke,  "  that  man  must  not  caU  here; 
Better  not  know  him." 

Our  hero's  tone  was  so  oddly,  yet  unconsciously  Uke  that 
of  his  sister-in-law  that  his  wife  could  not  repress  a  laugh. 

"  Really  "  said  she  "  I  think  Charles  and  I  are  both  old 
enough  to  take  care  of  ourselves.  After  all  we  are  not  so 
very  new.     Even  our  patent  dates  from  James  the  First." 

"  Edmund,  I  am  told  you  are  giving  up  Broke  Street," 
said  Lady  Bosket. 

"  That  is  so.  I  placed  it  in  the  hands  of  BrefFit  this 
morning.  It  will  presently  pass  into  those  of  his  son  or 
this  fellow  Salmon.  It  is  a  nice  thing  to  come  to  after  all 
these  years.  I — ah,  wonder  what  my  poor  dear  father  would 
have  said  had  he  lived  to  see  it.    Thank  God  he  did  not !  " 

"  So  you  have  made  your  minds  up  to  it  at  last,"  said 
Lady  Bosket  without  a  spark  of  pity,  notwithstanding 
that  Broke's  tone  of  contempt  was  too  plainly  intended 
to  hide  his  distress.  "  I  have  said  many  times  that  you 
ought  to  have  given  it  up  years  ago.  It  was  incredible 
to  me  that  persons  in  your  circumstances  should  have 
kept  it  on  so  long.  Some  people  might  have  ventured  to 
call  such  folly  by  a  harsh  name." 

"  You  forget  the  girls,  Emma,"  said  Mrs.  Broke  mildl}'. 
She  was  too  well  accustomed  to  her  sister-in-law's  love  of 
hectoring  her  poor  relations,  her  love  of  kicking  you  when 
you  were  down,  to  resent  speeches  of  this  kind.  "  The  girls 
had  to  come  out  you  know." 

"  I  fail  to  see  that  their  coming  out  has  been  of  service 
to  them.  They  would  have  done  better  to  stay  in  the 
country  along  with  the  horseflesh,  and  save  the  much- 
wanted  pence  of  their  parents.  Pecuniarily  they  would 
have  been  better  off,  and  matrimonially  no  worse.  It 
always  appears  to  me  a  criminal  waste  of  money  for 
country  girls  to  have  a  season  in  London  unless  they  are 

S2 


THE  NEED  FOR  A  HERO  AND  HEROINE 

good-looking,  rich,  or  endowed  with  brains  beyond  the 
common." 

"  Dash  it  all,  you  would  have  them  presented  wouldn't 
you  !  "  Broke  cried  with  an  incomprehensible  vehemence. 
Nothing  could  have  been  less  like  him,  for  he  was  always 
content  that  the  great  lady  should  ride  the  high  horse 
over  him  as  much  as  she  pleased,  now  that  he  was  so  down 
on  his  luck.  But  she  must  not  deliver  a  breath  of  disparage- 
ment against  his  girls. 

"  I  do  not  think  it  necessary  for  the  daughters  of  people 
as  poor  as  you  are  to  be  presented.  It  would  be  more 
becoming,  I  am  sure,  if  they  learnt  plain  needlework, 
knitting  and  cookery,  that  they  might  be  of  use  in  the 
world,  and  help  to  eke  out  the  means  of  their  parents." 

"  And  so  they  do,  poor  beggars  !  They  are  good  girls  all 
of  them,  and  hardly  cost  a  penny.  But  not  be  presented, 
Emma  ?  I  never  heard  such  a  thing  in  my  life  !  I'm 
rather  down  on  my  luck  I  know,  but  would  you  have  it 
said  that  my  girls  are  the  only  Broke  women  who  have 
never  been  to  Court  ?  " 

"  The  disgrace  would  not  be  indelible." 

"  That  is  a  matter  of  opinion,  Emma,  if — ah,  you  will 
allow  me  to  say  so." 

There  was  an  odd  Ught  in  the  eye  of  our  hero  that  the 
resolute  lady  had  not  observed  there  before.  His  face  too 
was  remarkably  red. 

"  Are  they  all  out  now  ?  "  she  asked,  deeming  it  expe- 
dient to  waive  the  controversy. 

"  DeHa  is  not,"  said  Mrs.  Broke.  "  I  am  sure  I  don't 
know  what  is  to  be  done  with  her,  poor  child.  Probably 
the  Gaddesden-Gaddesdens  will  have  her  with  them  at 
]\Iount  Street  just  for  May  and  the  Drawing-room.  Their 
youngest  girl  is  coming  out  too.  '' 

"  Those  people  !  "  cried  Lady  Bosket.  "  Jane,  you 
amaze  me.  Don't  you  know  that  they  are  mixed  up  with 
the  grocers  and  brewers  and  people  of  that  kind  who  put 
advertisements  of  their  doings  in  the  newspapers  under  the 
heading  of  '  The  Smart  Set  '  ?  " 

"  Beggars  cannot  choose,  my  dear,"  said  Mrs.  Broke 
with  admirable  meekness. 

"  Well,  rather  than  the  child  should  fall  into  such  hands 

83 


BROKE    OF    COVENDEN 

you  had  better  send  her  to  me  at  Grosvenor  Street,  and  I 
will  put  her  through  myself." 

"  How  good  of  you,  my  dear !  " 

"  Hold  up  your  head,  child." 

Lady  Bosket  raised  her  glasses  into  position  and  stared 
at  her  youngest  niece  with  a  concentrated  directness  that 
Delia  found  to  be  embarrassing.  She  was  much  more  deli- 
cately fibred,  far  timider  than  her  sisters. 

"  Rather  nice  eyes,"  said  her  aunt.  "  The  child  blushes 
too  much,  although  in  a  young  girl  that  may  sometimes  be 
reckoned  an  asset.  The  Broke  nose  is  not  quite  so  much 
in  evidence  as  in  the  others,  but  still  there  is  more  than 
enough  of  it.  Edmund,  I  always  say  that  the  Broke  nose  is 
incomparably  the  ugliest  thing  that  was  ever  borne  about 
by  a  human  being.  I  rather  like  the  child's  mouth.  That 
long  upper  lip  is  sometimes  effective.  I  do  not  Uke  her 
chin.  But  take  her  in  the  lump  I  should  be  inclined  to  say 
that  she  is  less  strikingly  ugly  than  any  of  them.  Probably 
a  little  deficient  in  character.  And  she  is  shockingly- 
dressed.  The  cut  of  that  coat  is  horrible.  Why  will  you 
not  send  them  to  Redfern.  Jane  ?  It  is  unfit  for  a  house- 
maid, and  it  is  atrociously  put  on.  The  child  is  a  bad 
shape.  Those  shoulders — those  ridiculous  shoulders ! 
See  that  she  wears  a  backboard,  Jane,  and  lies  on  her  back 
four  hours  a  day.  Her  hair  is  done  in  the  most  slovenly 
manner.  You  must  dismiss  her  maid.  I  hope  the  child 
has  clean  finger-nails." 

At  this  point  Lady  Bosket  lowered  her  glasses. 

"  Have  you  attended  to  her  manner,  Jane  ?  I  hope 
it  is  not  gauche  nor  triste,  nor  ingenue.  I  positively  forbid 
it  to  be  ingenue.  A  good  manner  is  worth  something 
in  these  days.  Most  people  do  not  know  there  is  such 
a  thing.  They  consider  they  have  only  to  talk  at  the 
top  of  their  voices  and  to  stare  as  hard  as  they  can  to 
supply  the  deficiency.  I  will  say  this  for  the  girls,  their 
manner  is  generally  above  criticism.  A  manner  grows 
rarer  every  year  among  the  young.  I  suppose  the  girls 
inherit  it  from  you,  Jane.  Yours  was  always  excellent ; 
so  different  from  Charles'." 

"  Ttsh  a  lie,  my  dears.  Don't  you  believe  her,"  Lord 
Bosket  mumbled. 

84 


THE  NEED  FOR  A  HERO  AND  HEROINE 

"  If  I  betray  this  interest  in  the  child,"  Lady  Bosket 
continued,  "  I  make  one  condition,  Jane.  I  shall  have 
her  educated.  The  child  must  not  remain  a  cross  between 
a  dunce  and  an  idiot.  I  shall  insist  on  her  having  ideas 
above  horseflesh." 

"  You  can  do  as  you  like,  my  dear,  if  only  you  are  disposed 
to  pay  the  piper.  With  Billy  in  the  Blues  it  is  impossible 
for  us  to  spend  another  farthing  on  the  girls." 

"  Very  well,  as  I  have  not  a  girl  of  my  own  the  child  shall 
be  my  concern.  But  I  make  it  a  condition  that  I  have  an 
absolutely  free  hand.  It  will  be  a  luxury  to  have  one 
niece  endowed  with  a  culture  a  little  more  liberal  than  that 
of  her  sisters  ;  a  niece  who  in  time  may  hope  to  distinguish 
between  the  differential  calculus  and  the  tail  of  a  horse. 
I  will  enter  her  at  Newnham  College." 

"  The  wretched  child  would  never  be  able  to  pass  the 
preliminary  examination,"  said  her  mother,  laughing. 
"  Her  mind  at  present  is  about  equal  to  that  of  a  well- 
developed  mouse." 

"  That  can  be  remedied.  She  must  have  a  coach. 
Fortunately  I  know  of  a  man ;  quite  a  deserving  person  I 
believe,  who  by  his  industry  has  raised  himself  from 
behind  the  counter  of  his  father's  bookshop  in  Cuttisham 
to  taking  a  course  at  the  university.  I  am  told  he  has 
acquitted  himself  with  distinction,  and  that  presently  he 
may  look  for  election  to  a  fellowship  of  his  college.  In 
a  sense  I  regard  him  as  a  protege  of  my  own,  for  when  he 
served  behind  the  counter  of  his  father's  shop  I  was 
pleased  by  his  honest  face  and  unassuming  manners. 
He  also  appeared  to  possess  a  knowledge,  so  rare  in  a 
bookseller,  of  the  wares  he  sold.  It  was  on  my  advice  I 
believe  that  his  father  consented  to  his  going  to  Cambridge. 
Results  have  justified  my  interest,  and  they  redound  to 
the  young  man's  credit." 

"  Will  not  his  youth  be  in  the  nature  of  a  draw- 
back ?  " 

"  Not  at  all ;  it  will  be  more  than  compensated  for  by 
his  station  in  life.  Of  course  one  has  heard  of  horrible 
cases  where  unscrupulous  adventurers  have  played  havoc 
in  the  best  regulated  families.  But  surely  one  can  assume 
that  a  person  of  this  kind  will  be  quite  safe." 

8:. 


BROKE   OF    COVENDEN 

"  This  optimism  is  unlike  you,  Emma,"  said  Mrs. 
Broke,  with  a  stealthy  pleasure. 

"  I  am  not  so  hide-bound  with  prejudice  as  most  people 
who  Hve  in  the  country.  My  outlook  is  a  little  wider  in 
these  things.  I  hold  that  the  masses  should  be  trusted  up 
to  a  certain  point,  and  in  chosen  instances  opportunities 
should  be  granted  to  them.  My  dear  friend,  the  late  Mr. 
Gladstone,  was  always  a  firm  believer  in  that.  The  case  of 
this  worthy  fellow  is  one  for  encouragement ;  besides  the 
danger  does  not  exist.  From  the  merely  physical  stand- 
point he  is  not  alluring." 

"  I  would  not  be  too  sure  about  danger  not  existing, 
Emma,  if  I  were  you,"  said  our  hero,  chuckling  grimly  at 
the  conceit.  "  There's  no  saying  what  things  are  coming 
to  nowadays.  You  can't  make  them  out.  In  fact  it  is 
my  opinion  the  old  sharply  defined  distinctions  are  dis- 
appearing." 

With  this  brief  but  wonderfully  penetrating  expression 
of  his  wisdom  our  hero  again  relapsed  upon  silence. 

"  My  dear  Edmund,  how  extravagantly  clever  of  you," 
said  Mrs.  Broke,  looking  from  her  husband  to  her  sister- 
in-law  with  pensive  amusement.  She  was  still  regarding 
the  unconscious  pair  in  this  manner  when  the  butler  came 
into  the  room.     He  bent  over  her  chair. 

"  Lord  Salmon  to  see  you,  ma'am." 

Broke  pricked  his  ears. 

"  You  are  not  at  home,  Jane,"  he  said  shortly; 

She  lifted  to  him  her  baffiing  smile. 

"  On  the  contrary,  I  particularly  want  to  see  him ; 
and  I  want  you,  my  dear,  particularly  to  see  him  too. 
Bring  his  lordship  in  here,  Person,  if  you  please."  And 
as  the  butler  went  forth  on  his  mission,  "  It  is  rather  un- 
necessary of  our  friend  to  call  at  this  hour.  But  as  he 
is  worth  six  millions  one  must  ascribe  it  to  his  force  of 
character.  He  is  capable  of  calling  at  three  o'clock  in  the 
morning  if  he  felt  inclined.  Still  one  cannot  have  too 
much  indulgence  for  six  millions  ;  and  after  all  he  may 
not  have  read  Manners  for  Millionaires  or  Croesus  and 
Courtesy." 

Although  this  prattle  was  designed  to  fill  the  arid 
pause  that  heralded  Lord  Salmon's  announcement j  Broke 

86 


THE  NEED  FOR  A  HERO  AND  HEROINE 

glared  stonily,  and  Lady  Bosket  was  able  to  say  before 
he  came  in — 

"  Jane,  I  wish  you  to  understand  that  I  stay  under 
protest,  and  out  of  curiosity.  This  is  not  a  prece,dent.  I 
am  seriously  offended  that  you  should  think  fit  to  receive 
a  person  of  this  sort  while  I  am  at  your  table.  I  do  not 
know  when  I  have  been  so  hurt.  It  is  only  because  I 
have  heard  so  much  about  the  man  that  I  choose  to 
remain  and  see  for  myself.  He  enjoys  a  most  unenviable 
notoriety.  But  on  no  account,  Jane,  are  you  to  introduce 
him  unless  I  ask  you  to  do  so." 

Mrs.  Broke  sat  as  grave  as  a  church,  but  suddenly  her 
amused  eyes  began  to  dance  in  the  oddest  manner. 

The  door  opened  again. 

"  Lord  Salmon,"  said  the  butler. 


87 


CHAPTER   VII 
Le  Nouveau  Regime 

SAUI>  SALMON,  first  baron  of  the  name,  had  a  type 
of  countenance  likely  to  excite  racial  prejudice. 
His  nose  was  a  sufficient  guarantee  of  his  nationality.  He 
was  fat  to  the  verge  of  the  obscene.  His  picture  in  the 
newspapers  inferred  a  composite  photograph  of  M.  Dumas 
the  Elder,  and  the  Tichborne  Claimant.  His  hair  was 
black,  curly,  and  abundant,  his  lips  like  a  negro's,  his  eyes 
a  bilious  yelUnv ;  while  his  coarse  but  powerful  mouth  was 
stamped  with  a  double-chin  of  ponderous  dimension.  His 
olive  tawny  skin  shone  with  addiction  to  the  pleasures  of 
the  table. 

A  creature  more  fantastically  unHke  your  gentleman  of 
England  of  whom  an  English  peer  is  allowed  to  be  the 
mirror,  would  not  be  easy  to  conceive.  There  was  not 
a  trace  about  him  of  that  Red  Indian,  reticence  which  is 
said  to  stamp  our  caste.  Tliere  was  effusiveness  in  the 
tawny  hue  of  him,  in  his  greasy  smiles,  in  his  movements, 
his  looks,  his  manner  of  speaking  ;  effusiveness  hand  in 
hand  with  affability  ;  effusiveness  cheek  by  jowl  with  an 
impregnable  belief  in  Saul  Salmon,  that  fair  work  of  God. 

He  seemed  hardly  to  know  whom  to  admire  most — him- 
self or  the  radiant  persons  he  saw  around  him.  He  seemed 
to  exude  an  air  of  patronage,  so  pleased  he  was  with 
all  the  charming  people  it  was  his  happiness  to  meet. 
What  you  thought  of  him  did  not  matter  ;  it  was  not  to  the 
point ;  it  was  enough  that  he  was  perfectly  satisfied  with 
you  :  a  man  of  a  Homeric  kidney,  if  ever  there  was  one  in 
the  world.  In  his  large  redundant  self-sufficiency  the 
little  winged  barbs  which  in  the  terminology  of  our  civili- 
se 


LE    NOUVEAU    REGIME 

zation  are  called  "  snubs  "  sank  and  were  lost,  like  stones 
in  a  morass.  He  was  born  to  conquer,  to  overcome  ;  even 
the  organized  disapproval  of  the  Pharisees  was  powerless 
before  such  a  self-esteem. 

When  this  ponderous  gentleman  entered  the  room 
grunting  in  his  progress,  and  bowing  to  left  and  to  right  in 
the  fashion  of  majesty  walking  in  the  midst  of  the  popu- 
lace, Mrs.  Broke  gave  him  a  hand  of  a  quite  peculiar  grace. 
However,  such  a  reception  was  a  little  discounted  by  the 
coldness  of  her  husband's  nod.  Lady  Bosket  raised  her 
glasses,  lowered  her  eyelashes,  and  favoured  him  with  a 
stare  of  extraordinary  resolution  ;  while  Lord  Bosket,  who 
by  now  was  sinking  rapidly  into  the  condition  which  from 
time  immemorial  has  been  the  source  of  our  national 
humour,  jerked  his  head  in  a  salute  in  the  fraternal  fashion 
of  the  red-nosed  comedian,  sacred  to  the  music-hall  stage. 

"  How  do.  Bos.  !  "  said  Lord  Salmon. 

"  How  do,  Fishy !  "  said  Lord  Bosket,  reciprocally 
waving  his  glass.     "  Chin,  chin  !  " 

The  true  inwardness,  the  real  significance  of  this  mystic 
utterance  being  denied  to  Lady  Bosket,  a  shudder  might 
have  been  seen  to  invest  the  form  of  the  stately  woman. 
However,  as  one  who  has  had  an  awkward  fall  feels 
compelled,  on  being  assisted  to  her  feet,  to  utter  some 
common-place  for  the  reassurance  of  the  lookers-on  and 
the  vindication  of  her  shattered  self,  so  Lady  Bosket 
at  this  moment  felt  called  upon  to  demonstrate  that  she 
was  undaunted  still,  and  that,  although  very  much 
shaken,  she  was  far  from  dead.  She  turned  to  the  niece 
who  had  the  fearful  honour  to  sit  beside  her,  and  said  in  a 
voice  not  quite  so  loud  as  usual — 

"  I  sometimes  think  if  your  Uncle  Charles  was  not  the 
head  of  one  of  the  best  families  in  England  he  would  be 
the  commonest  man  in  the  world." 

In  the  meantime  Mrs.  Broke,  with  that  almost  cynical 
supineness  she  could  display  when  she  had  a  purpose  to 
serve  by  it,  had  prevailed  in  unctuous  accents  on  Lord 
Salmon  to  exchange  his  hat  for  a  seat  at  the  luncheon 
"table. 

"  You  must  please  forgive  us,  my  dear  Lord  Salmon," 
she  said  with  a  solicitude  that  encroached  upon  flattery, 

89 


BROKE    OF    COVENDEN 

"  if  we  should  seem  a  little  peremptory.  The  fact  is,  Lady 
Bosket  and  myself  are  pledged  to  be  at  Cuttisham  Town 
Hall  at  a  quarter  to  three,  to  attend  a  meeting  of  the 
Temperance  Society." 

"  I'm  goin'  too,"  said  Lord  Bosket.  "  Drink  is  the 
curshe  of  this  country.     We  musht  put  it  down." 

Lord  Bosket  winked  at  nobody  in  particular  with  great 
solemnity,  as  a  concession  to  this  piece  of  humour,  which, 
for  some  occult  reason,  had  not  met  with  the  acclamation 
he  felt  it  merited. 

"  Don't  mention  it,  ma'am,"  said  Lord  Salmon.  "  Tem- 
perance —excellent  work — like  a  cheque  ?  " 

"  My ^^ar  Lord  Salmon,"  said  Mrs.  Broke,  "indeed  T  can 
say  of  my  own  knowledge  it  is  a  very  well  administered 
and  deserving  charity.  Really,  my  dear  Lord  Salmon, 
you  really  are " 

"  Don't  mention  it,  ma'am,"  said  Lord  Salmon.  "  Fix 
the  figure." 

"  How  does  a  hundred  guineas  strike  you  ?  "  said  Mrs. 
Broke,  beaming  upon  the  eminent  financier. 

"  Make  it  two,  ma'am,  make  it  two;  it's  all  the  same  to 
me.     I  spend  fifty  thousand  a  year  on  advertisement." 

"  Well,  my  dear  Lord  Salmon,  if  you  positively  insist  upon 
it,"  said  the  gracious  lady. 

Without  more  ado  Lord  Salm.on  took  a  cheque-book  and 
a  fountain-pen  from  the  breast-pocket  of  his  coat,  and  drew 
upon  himself  to  the  extent  of  two  hundred  and  ten  pounds 
in  i\Irs.  Broke's  favour.  While  this  operation  v/as  being 
performed  Broke  and  Lady  Bosket  gazed  piteously  at  one 
another  across  the  white  expanse  of  tablecloth,  somewhat 
after  the  fashion  of  two  belated  missionaries  who,  by  stress 
of  circumstances,  are  compelled  to  sit  down  among  canni- 
bals and  take  a  little  something  to  eat. 

When  Lord  Salmon  had  written  the  cheque  he  looked  up 
to  encounter  the  arctic  glance  of  Lady  Bosket.  Her 
glasses  stuck  out  perfectly  rigid  in  front  of  her.  She  was 
engaged  in  staring  at  him,  through  him,  above  him,  past 
him,  and  round  about  him  generally — a  remarkable 
feat  she  accomplished  with  the  aid  of  a  complete  vacancy  of 
expression  which  implied  that  he  was  not  there  at  all. 
But  your  Titan  of  commerce,  your  brilliant  and  audacious 

90 


LE    NOUVEAU    REGIME 

business  man,  your  millionaire  with  his  patent  of  nobility 
already  snug  in  his  pocket,  is  not  a  person  to  be  over- 
come by  a  look.  There  was  not  a  hole  in  his  armour. 
Cheque-book  in  hand  he  did  not  flinch  from  anything. 
Cheque-book  in  hand  he  was  ready  to  meet  a  god,  a  devil, 
or  even  a  woman. 

"  Ha,  Lady    B.,"    he    said    with     an    affability    that 
almost    made   her  whine,  "  delighted !      Knew    we   were 
bound   to   meet.     Know   you  by  name  of    course ;    see 
your  picture  in  the  papers  every  week.     Beautiful  work 
that   last   book  of    yours — what's    the  name    of    it  ? — I 
forget.     Can't  say  I've  read  it  myself,  no  time  for  read- 
ing you  know,  but  Lady  Salmon's  read  it.     Charmed  with 
it,   delighted  with  it,  and  declares    it   is   quite  equal  to 
anything  by  Marie  Corelli.     That's  not  mere  flattery,  I 
assure  you  ;  very  sincere  woman  my  wife,  and  if  she  likes 
a  thing  she  doesn't  hesitate  to  say  so.     She  is  very  anxious 
to  know  you  ;  very  disappointed  you  don't  call  on  her,  for 
she  has  quite  made  up  her  mind  to  like  you,  in  spite  of 
your  reputation.     You've  a  friend  in  Lady  S.    I  can  tell 
you ;  she  believes  in  you.     Thinks  you  are  misrepresented, 
thinks  you  are  misunderstood.     Prophet  without  honour 
don't  you  know.     Why  don't  you  come  and  see  us  ?  only 
too  delighted  to  see  you  at  Toplands  any  time.   Bring  Bos. 
Know  Bos.  very  well  of  course ;  old  friends,  aren't  we,  old 
son  ?     Had  one  or  two  amusing  nights  together  in  town, 
hadn't  we  old  boy  ?  If  Bos.  hadn't  been  on  very  good  terms 
with  the  pohce,  we  might  have  been  unable  to  keep  our 
names  out  of  the  newspapers  once  or  twice.     Golden  rule 
always  to  stand  well  with  the  police.     Fact  I  assure  you, 
ha,  ha,  ha !    Not  but  what  Bos.  and  I  were  all  right  person- 
ally.    It  was  those  rowdy  young  uns,  ha,  ha,  ha  !     Mind 
you  come  over  to  Toplands,  Lady  B.  ;  come  and  dine  with 
us,  or  come  and  stay  a  fortnight." 

Lady  Bosket  turned  to  the  butler  at  this  point,  and  said 
in  a  very  loud  voice — 
"  Porson,  my  carriage." 

"  Yes,  my  lady,"  said  Porson  in  an  awe-stricken  whisper. 

The  majestic  woman  rose,  and  without  vouchsafing  a 

word  to  anybody,  or  a  single  look  to  tlie  right  or  to  the  left, 

marched  straight  out  of  the  room.     She  carried  her  glasses 

91 


BROKE   OF   COVENDEN 

rigidly  in  front  of  her,  as  a  sacred  emblem  is  borne  before 
a  deity.  A  silence  that  could  be  felt  prevailed  round  the 
luncheon  table,  while  carriage  wheels  were  heard  to 
approach  on  the  gravel  of  the  drive,  and  presently  were 
heard  dramatically  to  die  away. 

As  the  noise  of  wheels  receded  slowly  up  the  avenue, 
Lord  Bosket  lifted  his  head  to  listen  earnestly.  He  drew 
a  deep  breath. 

"  That's  all  right,"  he  said  with  a  sombre  joy.  "  No 
foolin'  in  the  paddock  this  time.  She's  off.  I  will  say 
this  for  the  old  gell :  when  she  breaks  the  tape,  and  gets 
right  away,  you  feel  a  happier  and  better  feller.  You  feel 
stronger ;  sort  of  Richard-is-himself-again  feelin'  don't  you 
know.  Porson,  put  some  more  poison  into  this  jar.  And 
mind  which  ;  you  must  ha'  got  the  other  from  a  chemist." 

He  then  turned  to  Lord  Salmon.  As  usual,  he  was  pre- 
pared to  apologise  humbly  for  the  misdemeanours  of  his 
wife,  lest  anybody's  feelings  should  be  hurt. 

"  You  mustn't  mind  the  Missis,  Fishy.  It's  only  her 
fun.  You'll  get  used  to  it,  same  as  I  have,  when  you 
know  her.  This  mornin'  she  is  a  bit  uppish  even  for  her. 
It's  all  that  new  book.  Whenever  she  brings  one  out  she 
cackles  over  it,  like  a  hen  when  it  lays  an  egg.  The 
Spectator's  given  her  a  leadin'  article  this  week,  and  backs 
her  for  the  Immortal  Stakes.  I  wish  she  would  run  'em 
now.  There  might  be  a  bit  of  a  chance  then  for  a  poor 
old  blighter  like  me.  But  don't  you  mind  her,  Fishy,  there's 
a  good  feller,  don't  you  mind  her  ;  and  I'll  give  you  an  abso- 
lute certainty  for  the  March  Handicap.  Swinburne  II, 
Fishy ;  have  a  bit  on  both  ways.  I  had  it  from  the  owner. 
I've  got  a  monkey  on  myself." 

Out  came  Lord  Salmon's  pocket-book,  and  he  wrote 
dow  n  the  information  laboriously,  after  inquiring  how  to 
spell  the  name  of  the  horse. 

"  Right  you  are,  Bos.,"  said  he,  "  and  you  shall  have 
a  '  pinch  '  too,  my  boy.  Bull  California  Canned  Pears, 
Iridescent  Soap  Bubbles,  and  M;irs  and  Jupiter  Rails." 

It  was  now  the  turn  of  Lord  Bosket's  pocket-book  to 
appear ;  and  it  is  to  be  observed  that  Mrs,  Broke  produced 
memoranda  of  her  own.  Her  brother's  "  absoliite  cer- 
tainties "   had    now    and   then    an    unfortunate   habit   of 

92 


LE    NOUVEAU    REGIME 

culminating  in  a  non-starter ;  but  direct  information  from 
a  prince  among  company  promoters  was  a  horse  of  another 
colour. 

All  this  time  Broke  had  not  favoured  his  guest  with  a 
word,  and  had  merely  ignored  him.  Long  ago  he  had  made 
up  his  mind  with  the  deliberation  that  is  the  first  attribute 
of  justice.  His  verdict  was  given  once  and  for  all ;  even 
to  soften  or  modify  it  was  not  possible  to  that  arbitrary 
spirit.  Salmon  struck  to  the  roots  of  its  deepest  con- 
victions. Salmon  was  reactionary,  a  throwing-back  into 
the  barbarous  ages  when  Jack  was  as  good  as  his  neigh- 
bour. Where  was  our  vaunted  civilization  when  one 
of  this  kidney  stepped  impudently  into  our  nice  society, 
fraternized  with  us  and  claimed  equality  ?  Radical 
Governments  might  have  no  sense  of  decency,  but  they 
should  see,  confound  them  !  that  there  were  people  in  the 
world  who  had.  That  infernal  fellow  Gladstone,  with  his 
Franchises  and  Universal  Suffrages, had  something  to  answer 
for.  Here  in  the  person  of  this  man  Salmon  was  the  plain 
answer  to  the  fanatics  who  put  the  key  in  the  hands  of  the 
masses  with  which  to  open  the  door  of  the  House  of 
Commons.  The  sight  of  this  fat  Jew  ruffling  it  in  a  Radical 
coronet  made  his  gorge  rise.  They  could  not  even  respect 
the  sanctity  of  the  peerage,  curse  them  !  Thank  God, 
his  old  father  was  not  in  that  room  now.  He  would  have 
been  inclined  to  lift  him  out  of  doors  on  the  top  of  his  boot, 
lord  or  no  lord.  Such  persons  had  to  be  shown  that  money 
was  not  everything.  You  could  see  by  the  way  the  fellow 
flaunted  his  cheque-book  that  he  felt  that  money  was  the 
master  of  the  world.  He  would  have  to  be  taught  better. 
He  would  have  to  be  taught  that  there  were  things  money 
was  powerless  to  buy. 

Mrs.  Broke,  however,  was  as  bold  as  she  was  shrewd. 
Therefore,  however  egregious  our  hero's  attitude  towards 
Lord  Salmon,  she  did  not  deviate  an  inch  from  the  course 
she  had  marked  out  as  compatible  with  their  interests. 
She  informed  that  benevolent  peer  that  Broke  had  accepted 
a  seat  on  the  Board  of  the  Thames  Valley  Goldfields  Syndi- 
cate. 

He  rubbed  his  hands. 

"  Excellent !  "    he    said.     "  Felt    sure  you  would,  my 


BROKE   OF   COVENDEN 

dear  Broke,  felt  sure  you  would.  Fact  is,  you  get  some- 
thing for  nothing,  and  even  the  British  aristocracy  don't 
object  to  that — what  ?  Wonderful  magnetic  qualities 
in  money — ^what  ?  They  say  time  is  the  great  alchemist, 
but  personally  I  place  my  trust  in  money.  I  could  have 
put  lots  of  my  friends  in,  of  course ;  but  now  I've  my 
stake  in  the  country  and  a  seat  in  the  Lords,  I  must  look 
after  my  order.  It  seems  a  pity  that  people  like  you, 
blue-blooded,  stiff-necked  old  county  bigwigs,  who  have 
taken  such  pains  to  make  the  old  island  what  it  is, 
should  have  to  go  to  the  wall  now  it  begins  to  pay  its 
way.  It  seems  hard.  Besides,  the  country  wants  you 
Broke  my  boy.  You  give  her  tone  ;  you  keep  her  straight ; 
you  put  on  the  brake  and  steer  her  into  a  convenient  ditch 
when  her  rider's  feet  are  off  the  pedals,  and  she  is  com- 
ing downhill  a  purler.  I  can  afford  to  have  whims, 
and  one  among  them  is  to  keep  your  breed  upon  the  land. 
You  are  good  for  the  soil,  nearly  as  good  as  manure. 

"Now  I've  staked  out  a  pretty  big  claim  in  this  island,  I 
don't  mind  confessing  ;  and  in  giving  you  a  leg  up  I  am 
lending  a  hand  to  myself.  People  call  me  a  philanthropist. 
Don't  you  believe  them.  I  don't  part  with  a  penny  unless 
I  see  a  chance  of  making  twopence.  You'll  own  I'm  frank. 
It  pays  to  be  ;  else  I  should  carry  my  tongue  in  my  cheek 
with  the  rest  of  my  synagogue.  There  are  too  many 
simpering  fools  tip-toeing  about  the  globe  at  the  present 
time,  aping  humility  and  pretending  to  be  what  they  are 
not,  for  your  charlatan  to  get  a  very  fat  living  nowadays. 
Competition  has  killed  that  game.  Pharisaism  is  played 
out.  If  it  were  not,  I  should  have  stuck  a  new  Exeter  Hall 
in  the  middle  of  Piccadilly  before  now,  and  changed  the 
Empire  into  a  tabernacle,  and  added  tambourines  and 
skirts  to  the  ballet,  and  made  a  Hallelujah  Chorus  of  it, 
and  incorporated  the  Pink 'Un  with  the  Meihodisi  Recorder. 
Make  people  a  present  of  your  measure,  and  they  respect 
you  ;  but  let  them  take  it  for  themselves,  and  they  are  too 
flushed  with  their  own  cleverness  to  think  of  yours.  But 
this  is  talk  ;  I  must  be  going  ;  I  have  to  catch  the  three- 
twenty  to  town.  You  don't  fancy  me  much  at  present, 
my  dear  Broke,  but  give  me  a  fair  chance,  and  you'll  take 
to  me  better  in  time.     A  fair  chance  is  all  I  ask,  and  I'll 

94 


LE    NOUVEAU    REGIME 

lay  the  odds  you'll  be  the  first  to  own  up  that  there  is  some- 
thing after  all  in  brains  and  money.  For  I  Uke  you,  you 
blue-blooded  old  Roman  ;  we  must  keep  your  breed  alive 
in  the  island.  And  I'm  going  to  make  it  my  business  to 
see  that  we  do.  Good-day  everybody.  I  hope,  ma'am, 
you  will  call  on  Lady  S.     She'll  be  charmed." 

At  the  conclusion  of  this  somewhat  singular  harangue, 
which  was  very  rapidly  deUvered,  Lord  Salmon  rose  at  once 
and  with  an  exquisitely  frank  and  cordial  wave  of  the  hand, 
grunted,  and  waddled  his  way  out  of  the  room. 

"  Rum  beggar,"  reflected  Lord  Bosket  upon  his  retire- 
ment. "  But  he's  a  sportsman  from  his  head  to  his 
houghs.  He's  not  such  a  bad  sort,  neither.  He  talks 
sense.  Don't  be  so  damned  uppish  Edmund,  but  give 
the  feller  a  chance.  It's  all  he  asks  for ;  he  means  well. 
He's  no  fool ;  he  says  what  he  means  and  means  what  he 
says.  I've  seen  worse  than  that  fat  feller — lots  !  What's 
your  opinion,  Jane  ?  Give  us  your  opinion  ;  you've  a 
doosid  sight  more  brains  than  I  have  or  Edmund  either 
for  that  matter.     Dam  sight  too  clever  you  are,  my  gell." 

Mrs.  Broke  laughingly  declined  to  be  drawn. 

Luncheon  over,  she  announced  her  intention  of  setting 
forth  to  Cuttisham  Town  Hall,  in  the  wake  of  the  out- 
raged Emma. 

"  Charles,  you  are  coming,  of  course,"  she  said  to  her 
brother  slyly.  "  You  have  promised  to  support  Emma  on 
the  platform." 

"  Go  hon  !  "  said  Lord  Bosket,  leering  at  the  glass  in  his 
hand.  "  I  should  look  well,  I  should,  stuck  up  on  a  pedestal 
among  sky-pilots  and  people.  It's  a  thousand  to  five 
Emma  would  give  'em  the  tip,  and  they'd  point  at  me  as 
an  awful  example,  and  ask  me  to  be  saved." 

"  Bui  you  promised  to  support  her." 

"  She'll  be  able  to  support  herself  all  right.  She's  in  good 
talkin'  fettle  to-day  ;  and  she's  got  a  bit  of  steam  to  work 
off  over  this  Salmon  job.  Splendid  that  was.  Did  you 
see  her  old  beak  go  up,  and  her  top-knot  begin  to  nod  ?  I 
thought  she'd  burst.  I  was  really  sorry  for  her,  dear  old 
thing  !  But  I  wish  Fishy  could  have  had  about  five 
minutes  of  her  at  her  best,  bless  her  !  Lord-love-a-duck  ! 
won't  she  give  it  tongue  this  afternoon !   Talk  about  her 

95 


BROKE    OF      COVENDEN 

Mend  the  late  Mr.  G.  — the  old  man  would  not  be  in  it  with 
the  old  dutch.  After  all.  I'm  not  sure  that  I  wouldn't  like 
a  nice  safe  reserved  seat  in  the  stalls.  What  price  the 
bishop  in  his  mutton-chop  whiskers,  and  his  eyeglass, 
and  his  rabbit-skin  overcoat  ?  You'll  be  impressed,  cockie, 
won't  you  !  Pronounce  the  benediction  in  a  deep  bass 
voice — what  ?  " 

"  Charles,  Charles  !  "  cried  his  sister  waving  an  admoni- 
tory finger.  His  condition  had  proved  to  be  rather  more 
imminent  than  she  had  guessed. 

"  She's  got  her  speech  type-written  very  nicely,"  said 
Lord  Bosket,  declining  to  be  suppressed.  "  'Fragrant  and 
pellucid  English '  is  what  she  calls  it.  Not  a  bad  name  that. 
She's  already  opened  two  bazaars  with  it,  and  laid  a  founda- 
tion stone,  to  say  nothing  of  bun-worries  and  Sunday 
School  treats.  Funny  idea  some  people  have  of  a  treat. 
Not  but  what  she's  not  clever  you  know  in  her  way — devilish 
clever.  You  can't  help  but  admire  the  old  gell.  It  all 
reads  as  right  as  rain,  with  lots  of  quotations,  and  so  on. 
Give  the  old  dutch  her  due,  she's  clever  in  her  way. 
They  tell  me  this  new  book  is  as  good  as  Shakespeare. 
The  newspapers  write  leadin'  articles  about  her,  and  send 
sportsmen  in  frock  coats  and  top-hats  to  interview  her 
in  her  home.  Good  old  home  !  She  don't  neglect  the 
main  chance  either.  She  makes  a  lot  more  at  her  game 
than  I  do  out  of  racin'  I  can  tell  you.  Only  last  week 
she  bought  herself  a  new  tiara  out  of  her  tract  to  the 
Submerged  Tenth." 

Mrs.  Broke  deemed  it  expedient  to  set  out  without  her 
brother,  and  resigned  him  to  the  care  of  her  husband. 
After  smoking  their  cigars  they  went  forth  to  walk  round  the 
farm. 

The  day  being  wet,  the  girls  spent  the  afternoon  in  the 
room  dedicated  to  their  use.  They  called  it  their  den. 
The  name  was  appropriate,  for  had  it  been  in  the  occupation 
of  the  brute  creation  its  disorder  could  hardly  have  been 
more  complete.  This  temple  of  Diana  was  decorated  with 
emblems  of  the  chase  in  many  shapes  and  forms.  Boots, 
coats  and  hats  ;  sticks,  whips  and  spurs  ;  gloves,  fragments 
of  stirrup-leathers  and  bridles  ;  saddles  and  odd  pieces  of 
harness ;    bits,    chains     and     horseshoes ;     wash-leather, 

96 


LE    NOUVEAU    REGIME 

brown  polish  and  varnish,  odds  and  ends  of  every  conceiv- 
able sort  were  tumbled  in  heaps  all  over  the  room.  Mingled 
with  these  delectable  things  were  implements  for  the  pump- 
ing of  pneumatic  tyres  ;  bolts,  screws  and  handle-bars  ; 
skates,  hockey  sticks  and  leg-guards  ;  guns,  cartridges  and 
cart-grease  ;  poles  and  fishing-rods,  reels,  flies  and  tackle  ; 
cricket-balls,  bats  and  wickets ;  in  fact,  almost  every 
weapon  that  becomes  the  hand  of  woman. 

The  walls  were  furnished  with  prints  of  a  pronounced 
sporting  character,  and  with  the  heads  and  brushes  of 
defunct  foxes.  These  were  very  numerous  and  very  dusty  ; 
and  they  clustered  so  thickly  all  over  the  place,  that  the 
first  impression  it  conveyed  was  of  a  furrier's  shop.  A 
moment  for  reflection,  and  it  would  probably  be  amended 
to  that  of  a  marine-store  dealer. 

Under  each  of  these  trophies  a  label  was  affixed,  bearing 
in  a  carefully'  executed  juvenile  handwriting  the  date, 
where  found,  the  place  of  the  kill,  and  the  precise  length  of 
time  in  which  the  run  was  accomplished.  Over  the  fire- 
place were  pictures  of  their  father  in  pink,  seated  on  Merry- 
leg  ;  of  the  meet  of  the  Parkshire  on  the  lawn  of  their 
residence,  with  Joan  quite  a  grown  up  young  lady  on  a 
cob,  and  Harriet  and  Philippa  looking  quite  silly  on  ponies, 
with  their  hair  down  their  backs  ;  while  a  third  was  a 
framed  list  of  the  subscribers  to  the  testimonial  to  E.  W. 
A.  C.  B.  Broke,  Esq.,  M.P.,  J.P.,  D.L.,  M.F.H.,  which 
took  the  form  of  a  service  of  plate,  and  a  salad-bowl  for 
Mrs.  Broke,  on  the  occasion  of  his  relinquishing  the  master- 
ship of  the  East  Parkshire  Hounds. 

There  were  also  various  portraits  of  their  Uncle  Charles. 
One  was  a  picture  in  colours  from  a  newspaper  called 
Vanity  Fair,  with  the  name  of  "  Spy"  in  the  corner,  in 
which  their  Uncle  Charles  appeared  in  full  fig  with  a  horn 
and  a  very  long  whip  under  his  arm,  and  a  distinctly  red 
nose,  with  his  hands  thrust  deep  in  his  pockets  and  just 
that  kind-hearted  melancholy  look  about  him  that  they 
knew,  and  loved  so  well.  And  although  the  artist  had 
drawn  him  such  a  funny  shape,  and  painted  his  nose  very 
much  redder  than  it  really  was,  somehow  it  was  for  all  the 
world  like  him,  surrounded  by  dogs,  with  his  legs  straddled 
apart  very  wide,  and  dogs  in  between  them,  one  of  which 

97  G 


BROKE    OF   COVENDEN 

they  were  certain  was  meant  for  "  Pitcher,"  and  another 
for  "  Ballyhoolly."  This  cherished  picture  was  entitled 
"  Bos."  Then  there  was  another,  a  more  faithful  and 
formal  sort  of  likeness.  It  was  hardly  so  amusing  and  not 
so  true  to  life  as  the  coloured  one,  which  could  almost 
make  you  laugh  and  cry.  In  fact  this  was  not  a  bit  like  him 
really,  for  all  he  looked  so  fine.  It  was  from  the  Country 
Gentleman,  and  was  called  the  "  Master  of  the  Parkshire." 
Immediately  below  these  pictures  of  their  Uncle  Charles 
a  piece  of  newspaper  was  affixed,  a  whole  page  torn  from 
a  weekly  journal.  It  was  of  a  recent  date  ;  a  vigorously 
written  article,  called  "  The  Trick  Exposed."  It  began : 
"  We  have  never  been  asked  to  dinner  by  Lady  Bosket." 
It  proceeded  to  criticise  their  Aunt  Emma  and  her 
wTitings  in  a  very  frank  and  contemptuous  spirit.  It 
called  her  the  Apostle  of  Dulness  without  Indecency.  It 
called  her  the  Apostle  of  the  Ultra-Respectable,  the 
apostle  of  that  mediocrity  with  a  touch  of  pomp  in  it  that 
was  so  highly  valued  in  England.  It  said  there  was  not 
a  single  thought  embodied  in  all  the  writings  of  her  lady- 
ship which  did  not  come  of  a  very  old  family.  It  further 
said  there  was  not  a  single  thought  in  her  writings  that  had 
not  been  better  expressed  by  people  nearly  as  well  connected. 
It  said  the  so-called  severe  reiinement  of  her  style  might 
have  incurred  the  danger  of  being  mistaken  for  a  colourless 
nakedness  had  it  not  worn  a  coronet  to  cover  its  poverty. 
That  was  only  one  of  the  clever  witty  things  it  said.  There 
were  places  where  it  was  flippant  to  their  aunt ;  places 
where  it  chaffed  her  ;  places  where  it  said  for  all  her  pose, 
her  pretension,  and  her  coronet,  they  could  not  save  her 
from  belonging  to  the  category  of  Mrs.  This,  and  Miss 
That,  and  the  army  of  matrons  and  spinsters  of  mature 
life,  who,  instead  of  writing  with  the  vulgar  pen  and  ink 
of  common  people,  wrote  with  singleness  of  aim  and  lofti- 
ness of  purpose.  Like  those  good  ladies,  said  this  wicked 
delightful  newspaper,  she  would  be  doing  more  for  the 
amelioration  of  mankind  if  she  would  lay  down  her  pen 
and  take  to  darning  her  husband's  socks.  Fancy  Aunt 
Emma  darning  Uncle  Charles'  socks  !  They  had  drawn  a 
double  line  in  red  ink  under  that.  They  were  sure  the 
writer  must  have  known  Aunt  Emma  personally  to  have 

98 


LE   NOUVEAU    REGIME 

got  in  such  a  splendid  stroke.  And  the  notice  concluded 
in  these  words.  "So  long  as  to  be  dull  is  to  be  respectable, 
so  long  as  a  solemn  decorum  in  art  and  life  passes  for 
wisdom  and  mastery,  so  long  as  fatuity  passes  for  strength, 
sterility  of  soul  for  refinement  of  emotion,  vacancy  of  mind 
for  a  hyper-culture,  so  long  as  we  as  a  nation  take  Medio- 
crity, however  flat,  stale  and  unprofitable  it  be,  for  our 
fetish,  so  long  must  we  endure  the  standards  the  Lady 
Boskets  of  the  world  set  up  ;  and  not  only  in  the  realms  of 
art  but  in  every  walk  of  life  we  must  suffer  an  ideal,  which 
has  always  proved  acceptable  to  the  national  temper, 
however  it  debases  taste,  warps  the  judgment,  and  causes 
even  our  worthiest  traditions  to  become  the  prey  of  all 
who  have  not  forgotten  the  honest  usages  of  laughter." 

And  although  our  young  ladies  one  and  all  were  much 
too  honest  to  pretend  to  understand  a  word  of  what  this 
peroration  really  meant  they  had  wit  enough  to  know  it 
must  be  fine,  because  when  Joan  read  it  out  aloud  it 
sounded  beautiful ;  also  they  knew  it  must  be  true  because 
every  word  was  strongly  against  Aunt  Emma. 

There  was  no  name  attached  to  this  impassioned  piece 
of  newspaper  English,  strangely  enough. 

Again  and  again  had  Lady  Bosket's  nieces  read  that 
reviewj  They  would  turn  to  it  for  solace  when  newly 
come  from  under  the  lash  of  her  tongue.  When  it  had 
coiled  round  them  and  left  them  bleeding,  they  would  turn 
to  it  and  with  a  keener  zest  go  over  every  familiar  line  once 
more.  It  healed  them  a  little  to  hear  the  whip  crack 
about  her  too.  Or  if  their  Uncle  Charles,  the  dearest, 
kindest-hearted  uncle  in  the  world,  was  more  depressed, 
and  drank  a  little  more  whisky  than  usual,  they  would 
read  it  to  avenge  his  wrongs.  Joan,  Roman-hearted  Joan, 
Joan  of  Arc  was  the  special  name  they  had  given  her,  so 
hugely  was  she  admired  by  the  other  five  because  of  her  high 
and  inflexible  spirit — ^Joan  made  it  her  boast  that  she 
knew  every  word  of  it  by  heart,  and  at  a  moment's  notice 
could  repeat  it  all,  right  from  the  beginning. 

This  afternoon  they  had  a  painful  duty  to  perform. 
Whenever  Aunt  Emma  published  a  new  book,  it  was  her 
custom  to  carry  a  copy  to  Covenden  for  the  improvement 
of  the  minds  of  her  nieces.     It  is  true  a  doubt  always  ac- 

99 


BROKE   OF   COVENDEN 

companied  the  Grecian  gift — a  doubt  whether  the  pious 
object  she  had  in  view  would  be  fulfilled.  "  I  don't  sup- 
pose you  will  read  it,  and  if  you  do  I  don't  suppose  you 
will  understand  it,"  she  was  wont  to  say  in  her  lofty 
manner,  "  but  at  least  it  shall  not  be  urged  against  me 
that  I  have  made  no  effort  to  rescue  your  understandings 
from  the  peculiar  squalor  of  their  environment."  The 
meaning  of  the  word  environment  they  were  not  very  clear 
about,  but  they  felt  sure  it  was  not  at  all  nice,  else  it 
would  not  have  been  used  by  Aunt  Emma. 

With  the  same  solemnity  as  the  gift  was  made  to  them, 
her  nieces,  without  a  glance  at  the  latest  offspring  of  their 
gifted  relation's  genius,  invariably  took  steps  to  be  rid  of 
it.  It  had  become  their  custom  to  burn  the  offending 
tome  in  the  conscientious  but  uncompromising  manner 
that  heretics  were  burnt  of  old.  No  victim  of  the  Inqui- 
sition, no  Smithfield  martyr  ever  received  his  doom  with 
a  more  ruthless  gusto  on  the  part  of  his  executioners. 

That  morning  Lady  Bosket  had  presented  them  with 
the  latest  volume  of  her  precious  imaginings,  humbly 
entitled  Weeds  in  the  Grass.  She  did  not  mean  it  of 
course.  But  did  it  not  savour  of  a  delicate  piquancy  that 
the  world-famous  authoress  of  Poses  in  the  Opaque  should 
choose  a  name  as  meek  as  this  for  any  child  of  her  intellect  ? 
The  daily  journals  remarked  upon  it  with  an  eager  unani- 
mity, and  chided  her  tenderly  for  such  a  delightfully 
obvious  deception.  A  footman,  a  real  live  one,  born  and 
bred  to  the  wig  and  powder,  retained  by  a  morning  news- 
paper with  great  expense  and  enterprise,  because  of  his 
intimate  knowledge  of  the  aristocracy,  was  sure  her  lady- 
ship must  have  her  tongue  in  her  cheek  !  The  weekly 
journals,  the  organs  of  literary  culture  ind  critical  opinion, 
very  shrewdly  saw  a  wider-reaching  significance  in  such 
an  elaborate  humility.  Great  critics  wrote  scholarly 
and  closely  reasoned  articles  to  prove  that  Genius  Was 
No  Longer  Arrogant.  And  they  based  their  argument 
upon  the  case  of  the  authoress  of  the  immortal  Poses,  a 
great  lady,  a  daughter  of  a  peer,  the  wife  of  another,  and 
the  niece,  the  cousin,  and  the  granddaughter  of  several. 

It  was  printed  on  parchment,  and  bound  in  white 
vellum.     It  was  dedicated  "To  my  Husband."     Critical 

100 


LE    NOUVEAU    REGIME 

journals  remarked  upon  the  essential  simplicity  of  this  lady, 
whose  distinguished  fate  had  not  divorced  her  from  a  sense 
of  the  sacred  nature  of  motherhood  and  wifeliness.  She 
was  devoutly  domestic  before  the  world.  Critical  journals 
remarked  on  that  also,  and  pointed  the  moral  of  it  to  the 
more  emancipated  members  of  her  sisterhood  who  went 
about  with  shrieks  and  battle-cries,  brandishing  their 
pens,  and  flinging  ink.  If  she,  a  person  of  unfaltering  ideals 
and  impeccable  distinction,  was  content  to  be  simple  and 
natural,  and  did  not  hold  the  first  and  highest  duties  of 
her  sex  to  scorn,  was  it  too  much  to  ask  an  alike  humility  of 
them  ? 

On  the  title-page  there  was  a  quotation  from  Bishop 
Butler,  several  from  the  classic  authors  in  their  original 
Greek  and  Latin,  and  one  from  Amiel's  Journal.  On  the 
next  there  was  an  open  letter  to  the  aathoress  from  the 
late  Mr.  Gladstone,  her  ver}'  dear  friend.  In  the  first 
chapter  the  late  Mr.  Matthew  Arnold  was  quoted  at 
length  ;  in  the  second,  the  Poet  Laureate  and  the  Right 
Honourable  Lord  Byron  were  crowried  with  bay.  Critical 
journals  gathered  from  a  close  perusal  of  her  work  that 
romantically  afraid  lest  she  should  be  thought  parvenue 
— surely  it  was  of  the  marrow  of  romance  that  one 
throned  in  Debrett  far  above  the  breath  of  detraction 
should  suffer  these  sentimental  notions — she  traced  her 
literary  parentage  back  as  far  as  Dr.  Richard  Hooker  ; 
although  very  properly  she  liked  it  to  be  understood  that 
the  first  place  in  her  esteem  was  reserved  for  the  band  of 
contributors  to  the  New  Testament. 

Such  w^as  the  fair  flower  of  the  mind  that  was  called  on 
to  undergo  the  last  indignity  a  book  can  suffer.  No 
mischievous  print,  no  volume  of  sedition,  however 
ribald,  licentious,  or  heretical,  was  committed  to  the 
flames  of  yore  by  the  common  hangman  with  an  unction 
more  impressive.  In  a  group  around  it  stood  five  of  the 
executioners,  whilst  Joan  the  sixth  suspended  the  offensive 
work  in  a  pair  of  tongs  by  one  of  its  virgin  boards  of  white 
vellum.  Candour  and  our  respect  for  the  character  of  the 
authoress  forces  us  to  confess  that  the  tone  of  the  martyr- 
volume  was  so  blameless  that  it  was  fit  to  be  read  any 
Sunday,  by  any  clergyman  in  the  bosom  of  his  family. 

loi 


BROKE   OF   COVENDEN 

But  the  most  spotless  virtue  never  had  a  pennjnvorth  of 
weight  with  fanaticism.  That  which  could  not  avail 
La  Pucelle  and  Dame  Alice  Lisle  was  powerless  to  defend 
even  the  pure  and  modest  muse  of  Lady  Bosket.  One  by 
one,  in  regular  rotation  and  perfect  order,  the  executioners 
circled,  each  in  her  turn  plucking  out  a  leaf  and  committing 
it  incontinently  to  the  fire ;  and  in  the  act  they  pro- 
nounced the  incantation :  "  There,  Aunt  Emma,  this  is 
what  we  are  doing  with  your  horrid  book  I  " 


102 


CHAPTER  VIII 

Enter  the  True  Prince  in  the  Guise  of  a 
Dustman 

A  FEW  days  later  our  hero  was  riding  to  the  meet  of 
the  Parkshire  Hounds  about  ten  o'clock  in  the  morn- 
ing. He  was  accompanied  by  his  retinue  of  daughters, 
Joan,  Harriet,  and  Margaret,  whose  privilege  it  was  that 
day  to  be  mounted  in  a  becoming  manner,  with  Philippa 
and  Jane  bringing  up  the  rear,  as  became  their  humbler 
state,  on  bicycles.  The  gallant  company  had  come  to  the 
porter's  lodge  that  kept  the  gates  of  their  ancestral  resi- 
dence, when  they  were  accosted  by  an  insignificant-looking 
young  man  in  a  blue  melton  overcoat. 

The  first  fact  pertaining  to  this  young  man's  appearance 
that  struck  their  somewhat  distressingly  acute  feminine 
observation,  was  that  the  overcoat  was  old,  and  that  the 
velvet  collar  that  had  formerly  been  an  ornament  to  it  had 
now  ceased  to  behave  in  that  capacity.  It  was  frayed  and 
embrowned  with  decay.  He  was  a  pale  young  man, 
decidedly  under  the  middle  height,  with  a  head  inclined 
to  droop,  and  rather  a  misfit  for  his  body.  It  looked 
several  sizes  too  large  for  it ;  and  he  wore  an  air  of  earnest 
perplexity,  as  though  even  as  he  walked  he  was  grappling 
with  the  problem  of  how  to  bear  about  such  a  very  big 
thing  on  such  an  inadequate  vehicle.  His  shoulders  too 
seemed  to  be  preoccupied  with  the  same  responsibility. 
They  had  a  bunched,  a  rounded  look,  as  though  the  young 
man  had  a  pair  of  corsets  beneath  his  coat  that  did  not 
fit  him.  He  was  wearing  a  bowler  hat  that  was  rather 
battered,  worn  to  a  fictitious  polish  around  the  brim, 
almost  green  with  age  in  places,  and  so  liberally  encased 

103 


BROKE   OF   COVENDEN 

with  dust  that  a  kind  of  outer  shell  had  been  formed  upon 
it.  In  its  relations  with  the  young  man's  head  this  article 
seemed  to  share  the  disabiUties  of  his  person.  It  coped  no 
better  with  that  egregious  skull.  It  had  the  look  of  a 
cockle-shell  jauntily  poised  on  his  thick  brown  patch,  and 
at  the  first  sight  lent  him  an  appearance  of  a  latent 
sauciness  which  if  you  happened  to  catch  it  at  an  appro- 
priate angle  was  irresistibly  diverting  in  such  a  serious 
demeanour. 

He  wore  a  low  collar ;  his  tie  was  broad  and  vague  and 
unimpressive  ;  his  boots  were  distinguished  members  of 
the  noble  order  of  the  "  knubbly  "  ;  his  trousers  bagged  at 
the  knees,  and  were  turned  down  demurely,  and  the  only 
creases  of  which  they  could  boast  were  one  round  each 
ankle,  where  on  wet  days  it  was  their  wont  to  turn  up.  In 
a  word,  the  appearance  of  the  young  man  was  ineffectual. 
There  was  an  almost  pathetic  lack  of  distinction  about  his 
clothes  and  the  unobtrusive  way  he  wore  them  which 
would  not  have  seduced  our  hero  and  his  attendant 
Dianas  to  bestow  a  glance  upon  him  had  he  not  stopped 
as  they  came  through  the  gate,  raised  his  hat  with  a 
difhdence  the  reverse  of  the  fashionable,  and  ventured  to 
address  them. 

"  Mr.  Broke  ?  " 

"  That  is  my  name,"  said  their  father,  looking  him  over 
keenly. 

"  My  name  is  Porter.  I  am  engaged  to  coach  one  of 
your  daughters.  Mrs.  Broke  wrote  to  say  that  this  morning 
at  ten  o'clock  would  be  a  convenient  hour  for  my  duties  to 
begin." 

"  That  is  so,  I  believe.  My  youngest  daughter  is  at 
home  with  that  object  in  view." 

The  cavalcade  passed  on.  The  young  man  saluted 
them  again,  but  their  father  did  not  acknowledge  the 
courtesy. 

Poor  Delia  !  Well  might  she  fail  to  hide  the  tears 
that  sparkled  in  her  eyes  when  she  watched  them  ride 
away.  Poor  little  kid  !  It  was  become  almost  a  proverb 
with  them  that  she  was  born  to  be  unlucky.  All  the  dis- 
agreeable things  seemed  to  fall  to  her.  But  of  all  the  unto- 
ward events  that  had  ever  occurred,  all  paled  into  insigni- 

104 


ENTER   THE   TRUE    PRINCE 

ficaiK  e  before  this,  the  crowning  one.  To  become  a  proiegS 
of  Aunt  Emma  !  The  humiliation  was  only  equalled  by 
the  inconvenience.  So  this  was  their  aunt's  emissary. 
He  coincided  in  every  way  with  the  picture  already  painted 
of  him  in  their  imaginations.  He  was  just  the  person  you 
would  expect  her  to  send.  If  looks  counted  for  anything, 
he  was  a  worthy  minion.  It  was  hard  enough  for  her,  poor 
little  kid,  that  she  should  be  compelled  to  forego  the  delights 
of  this  perfect  hunting-day  at  the  dictation  of  the  Ogress, 
a  nam.e  that  Joan  had  invented  for  her,  without  having  to 
suffer  the  additional  indignity  of  spending  it  in  such  society. 
Their  mother  knew  what  was  good  for  them  of  course,  but 
it  did  seem  hard  on  their  sister.  The  reason  of  it  and  the 
justice  had  to  be  taken  for  granted,  for  they  were  quite  at 
a  loss  to  evolve  them  out  of  their  own  private  code  of  wisdom 
and  probity.     He  was  a  very  terrible  young  man  ! 

The  subject  of  these  reflections  had  in  the  meantime 
passed  on  towards  the  house.  Presently  he  was  face  to 
face  with  the  imposing  doors  of  their  dwelling.  He  pulled 
at  the  bell.  An  august  old  gentleman  attended  his  sum- 
mons at  a  majestic  leisure.  The  august  old  gentleman 
looked  him  up  and  down,  from  his  green  hat  to 
his  misshapen  boots,  in  a  perfectly  liberal  spirit  of 
criticism.  Subtle  and  indefinite  signs  seemed  to  indicate 
that  his  appearance  hardly  recommended  itself  to  the 
austere  custodian  of  the  family  dignity. 

"  Mr.  Porter,"  said  the  visitor,  entering  the  hall  with  an 
air  that  somehow  hardly  went  with  his  clothes. 

Mr.  Porson's  manner  of  conducting  Mr.  Porter  to  the 
drawing-room  had  an  excellent  touch  of  condescension  in 
it,  yet  it  was  hardly  so  pronounced  as  a  moment  ago  the 
circumstances  seemed  to  warrant. 

During  the  five  minutes  in  which  the  visitor  was  left 
alone,  in  this  cold  and  draughty  apartment,  he  picked  up 
a  copy  of  the  Rubaiyai  of  Omar  Khayyam  in  the  version 
of  Edward  Fitzgerald,  which  was  lying  on  a  table,  and 
proceeded  to  read.  He  was  startled  by  a  creak  of  skirts. 
He  Hfted  his  eyes  to  discover  that  a  woman  had  entered 
the  room,  and  was  looking  keenly  at  him.  She  was  a  red- 
faced,  hard-featured,  rather  countrified-looking  woman, 
who  might  not  have  appeared  out  of  place  had  she  been 

105 


BROKE   OF   COVENDEN 

keeping  a  stall  in  Cuttisham  market.  The  instant  the 
young  man  lifted  his  eyes  and  beheld  her,  her  face  melted 
in  a  dazzling  smile. 

"  Even  you,  Mr.  Porter,"  she  said  with  an  easy  prompti- 
tude, as  though  they  were  very  old  friends,  "in  an  idle 
moment  can  allow  yourself  to  be  diverted  with  these 
elegant  trifles.  I  confess  I  shall  not  be  quite  so  much 
afraid  of  you  now.  I  was  trembling  lest  one  of  your  attain- 
ments and  an  unlearned  woman  like  myself  would  have 
no  common  ground  on  which  to  meet.  You  see  my  sis- 
ter-in-law has  frightened  me  with  your  reputation." 

The  young  man  returned  the  smile  frankly.  Already 
he  was  trying  to  detect  a  certain  note  his  instincts  assured 
him  were  lurking  in  this  flattering  address.  But  listen  as  he 
might  he  could  not  trace  it ;  so  cunningly  was  it  hidden  that 
it  might  not  be  there  after  all.  The  delicate  concealment 
of  it  was  due  perhaps  to  the  quality  of  the  voice.  The  voice 
of  this  red-faced,  hard-featured,  perpetually  smiling  woman 
was  very  beautiful  indeed.  The  first  sensation  it  gave  him 
was  that  he  asked  no  better  than  to  stand  there  on  that 
rather  threadbare  carpet  in  that  decidedly  draughty 
drawing-room,  and  hear  her  talk  for  ever. 

"  You  have  come  from  Cuttisham,"  she  said.  "  I  fear 
it  is  a  very  long  journey.  But  probably  you  have  a  bicycle, 
or  you  ride  ?  " 

"  I  prefer  to  walk,"  said  the  young  man.  "  It  is  not  more 
than  four  miles." 

"  That  is  eight,  here  and  home  again.  It  seems  a  very 
long  walk." 

"  I  try  to  get  exercise.  A  man  of  sedentary  occupation 
takes  it  if  he's  wise." 

"  Without  a  doubt  you  are  right,  but  I  must  prevail  upon 
you  to  have  some  little  refreshment  after  such  exertion.  A 
biscuit  and  a  whisky  and  soda  ?  A  glass  of  sherry  and  a 
piece  of  cake  ?  " 

The  young  man  was  proof  against  these  alluring  things  ; 
but  when  he  was  conducted,  presently,  by  Mrs.  Broke  to 
the  library  to  make  the  acquaintance  of  his  pupil,  he  was  in 
danger  of  becoming  her  friend  for  life.  The  quarter  of  an 
hour  he  had  s]-»ent  with  this  singularly  amiable  woman 
was   a   memorable   experience.     She   was   so   simple,    so 

1 06 


ENTER   THE    TRUE    PRINCE 

melodious,  so  very  solicitous  for  one's  welfare,  although 
she  was  hardly  conscious  of  one's  existence  and  had  never 
set  eyes  on  one  before  !  It  was  as  though  this  gracious 
matron,  with  her  dazzling  smile  and  her  beautiful  voice, 
was  making  love  to  one  all  the  time. 

There  was  a  brave  fire  on  the  wide  hearth  of  the  library, 
and  a  small  brown,  rather  plaintive  little  figure  was  seated 
at  a  table  before  it.  A  sad  little  figure.  There  were 
several  ominous  blots  drying  on  a  page  of  Euclid's  Second 
Book,  which  was  open  in  front  of  her.  Haloes  of  faint  red 
shone  round  her  eyes  in  the  glow  of  the  firelight.  When  the 
door  opened,  and  her  mother  appeared  with  a  man  behind 
her,  at  whom  Delia  hardly  dared  to  look,  she  flushed  and 
rose  timidly. 

"  This  is  the  child,  Mr.  Porter,"  said  her  mother  in  that 
tone  of  ultra-graciousness  that  could  always  leave  a  weal 
upon  them  when  it  chose.  "  But  let  me  confess  that  I  do 
not  envy  you  your  task — a  very  labour  of  Hercules  !  " 
Her  laughter  rippled  like  a  flute.  "  The  name  of  Broke 
is  a  synonym  for  a  splendid  intellectual  nullity.  In 
all  the  hundreds  of  years  it  has  been  borne  about  by  the 
thousands  of  human  entities  it  has  adorned,  I  defy  you  to 
find  one  wearer  of  it  who  has  been  distinguished  for  learn- 
ing, for  wit,  for  intellectual  fineness,  or  subtlety  of  any 
sort.  They  have  all  been  on  the  same  dead  level ;  the 
maximum  of  animal  vigour,  and  the  minimum  of  divine 
understanding.  One  cannot  claim  that  the  present  genera- 
tion is  an  exception  to  the  universal  rule.  The  sun  of 
its  knowledge  is  confined  to  dogs  and  horses  ;  it  makes  its 
friendships  and  holds  its  intercourse  with  the  beasts  of  the 
field.  It  has  a  healthy  contempt  for  culture  in  any  form, 
a  fine  intolerance  of  the  aesthetic,  and,  as  I  am  afraid  you 
will  discover,  an  inordinate  distrust  of  any  who  would  pre- 
sume to  tamper  with  this  Arcadian  simplicity.  I  hope,  Mr. 
Porter,  I  have  not  daunted  you  ;  but  if  you  fail,  I  do  not 
want  you  to  blame  yourself." 

This  speech  of  introduction,  taken  on  its  naked  merits, 
phrase  by  phrase,  was  decidedly  not  kind.  But  the  suave 
mellow  accents  in  which  it  was  embodied  made  it  impossible 
to  dwell  upon  that  aspect  of  it.  It  was  so  pointed  that  it  must 
have  stung  and  bitten  had  not  the  delicate  use  of  the  voice 

107 


BROKE    OF    COVENDEN 

conveyed  the  latent  sense  of  caress,  like  the  fur  about  the 
claw  of  the  tiger.  All  the  same  the  flush  in  the  face  of  the 
little  creature  deepened  slowly  during  her  mother's  speech. 

The  young  man  bowed  to  his  pupil  when  at  last  the  chance 
was  allowed  him  to  do  so.  Delia  returned  the  bow  with 
a  feeling  of  bewilderment.  Almost  in  the  act,  the  thought 
flashed  through  her  that  he  was  the  ugliest  and  oddest 
man  she  had  ever  seen. 

When  presently  her  mother  withdrew,  poor  Delia  made 
xio  effort  to  dissemble  her  sense  of  persecution. 

"  I  have  made  up  my  mind  to  hate  you,  Mr.  Porter," 
she  said  with  a  dehberation,  under  which  was  her  timidity. 

"  Honesty  !  "  said  the  young  man,  with  half  a  smile. 

In  his  eyes  she  was  only  a  little  chit  of  a  thing  with  a  nisset 
coloured  face  nearly  as  plain  and  countrified  as  her  mother's. 
But  it  had  much  greater  naturalness.  It  had  none  of 
those  ingratiating  tricks  that  played  so  skilfully  upon  the 
judgment.  This  was  a  pathetically  plain  little  face  which, 
apart  from  a  slight  shyness  induced  by  the  circumstances 
and  her  sex,  in  itself  rather  pretty  because  so  infinitely  well 
bred,  had  an  air  of  candour,  of  unfearing  innocence  that 
was  appealing.  But  there  was  a  memorable  nose  stuck 
in  the  middle.  It  fascinated  the  young  man  ;  never  had  he 
seen  an  organ  so  remarkable  on  the  face  of  a  woman.  It 
might  have  made  him  laugh  if  somehow,  out  of  proportion 
as  it  was,  it  did  not  seem  after  all,  in  an  absurd  whimsical 
manner,  to  be  appropriate  to  her  quaintness,  and  to  hold 
quite  rightly  and  properly  its  niche  in  nature.  At  a  second 
glance  it  seemed  as  much  a  part  of  her  countenance  as 
was  the  smile  of  Mrs.  Broke  a  part  of  hers.  Insensibly  it 
lured  his  picturesque  fancy  to  revert  to  the  Crusaders  and 
the  days  of  Chivalry,  so  that  when  he  looked  at  it  again,  the 
glamour  of  a  poetic  age  was  shining  on  it.  All  the  same 
it  was  a  little  odd,  a  little  unexpected  on  a  young  girl. 

He  liked  the  way  in  which  she  made  her  uncompromising 
statement.  It  was  a  curious,  imperious  little  way,  which 
yet  seemed  to  be  hers  quite  prettily  and  properly  for  all  her 
shyness  ;  it  was  almost  something  you  might  associate 
with  a  small  princess  or  a  fairy. 

"Alas  !  you  have  made  up  your  mind  to  hate  me,"  he  said. 
"  Ruthless  feminine  justice,  but  very  proper.  I  am  to  be 
punished,  not  that  I  am  the  real  cause  of  your  not  going 

108 


ENTER   THE    TRUE    PRINCE 

gaily  a-h  inting  with  your  father  and  sisters  this  delightful 
morning,  but  as  the  servile  minion  of  Destiny — inexorable 
Destiny,  that  pays  me  to  keep  you  in  prison  at  the  rate  of 
two  shillings  and  sixpence  an  hour." 

The  young  man's  laugh  was  by  no  means  so  unpleasant 
as  you  would  expect,  but  the  little  creature  met  it  with 
resolute  eyes. 

"  I  don't  think  I  blame  you,"  she  said  with  a  pretty 
little  air  of  rectitude. 

"  You  hate  me,  which  is  harder  to  bear." 

Again  she  refused  to  relax  to  his  laugh,  although  it  did 
not  jar  upon  her  at  all.  In  fact  it  was  rather  nice  to  hear 
him  laugh. 

"I  cannot  help  hating  you,"  she  said. 

"  Well,  Miss  Broke,  I  respect  your  candour." 

"  It  is  horrid  of  me,  but  I  cannot  help  speaking  as — as  I 
feel." 

"  Alas  !  "  he  said,  "  that  I  have  not  the  spirit  to  defend 
myself.  Do  you  know  that  when  I  met  your  sisters  at 
the  gate  laughing  and  chattering  at  the  top  of  their  voices, 
I  felt  that  I  should  not  be  forgiven  ?  My  fancy  formed 
a  picture  of  you  as  a  sort  of  captive  fairy  princess  immured 
in  a  moated  grange,  with  myself,  my  wicked  and  unworthy 
self,  in  the  part  of  the  ruthless  ogre  who  persecutes  her  ;  or 
again,  and  a  little  more  prosaically,  as  Cinderella,  with 
myself  as  the  ugly  and  malevolent  sister  who  kept  her 
from  the  ball.  Believe  me,  I  deplore  my  ignoble  role.  In 
fact  if  you  relent,  you  will  hardly  be  a  true  princess." 

"  I  will  certainly  not  relent." 

The  decision  seemed  to  ple'ase  him. 

"  Do  you  think  my  humility  makes  you  more  resolute  ?  ** 

"  I— I  do  not  think  it  could  !  " 

Delia  clutched  her  book  of  Euclid,  and  tried  to  squeeze 
the  sudden  tears  back  into  her  eyes.  A  fat  one,  however, 
insisted  on  pushing  itself  forward  on  to  her  apple-coloured 
cheek. 

"  Alas,  poor  princess  !  " 

The  young  man's  sigh  was  as  whimsical  as  his  face. 

*'  I  am  not  a  princess.  I  hope  you  will  not  call  me 
princess." 

"  Alas,  poor  C'.nderella  !  " 

109 


BROKE    OF   COVENDEN 

"  My  name  is  not  Cinderella,  if  you  don't  mind." 

"  Cinderella  is  your  real  name,  I  am  sure,  although,  quite 
ignorantly  and  mistakenly,  they  call  you  Miss  Delia.  My 
own  is  Merlin,  although  somewhat  perversely  I  sign  my 
letters  in  the  name  of  Alfred." 

"  I — I  think  you  laugh  at  me.     Please  do  not." 

"  On  the  contrary,  I  am  trying  to  be  sympathetic." 

"  Please  do  not — please  do  not  be  sympathetic." 

"  I  exceed  my  duties  ?  " 

"  Indeed,  yes." 

"  Then  what,  pray,  is  to  become  of  my  high  mission  ? 
Without  perfect  intercourse  I  am  afraid  this  doleful  clerk 
will  never  lead  his  charge  to  the  Mecca  of  the  faithful  fair, 
the  portals  of  Newnham  College." 

"  I  am  sure,  Mr.  Porter,  that  if  my  aunt  should  find  you 
to  have  sympathy  for  me  in  any  way,  you  will  not  be 
allowed  to  see  me  again." 

"  You  are  solicitous  for  my  two  and  sixpence  an  hour  ?  " 

"  Yes,  I  am,"  said  Delia  promptly. 

The  young  man  laughed.  He  opened  a  pair  of  very  large 
and  deep-set  eyes  at  her,  and  regarded  the  stain  drying  on 
the  russet  surface  of  the  cheek  with  a  grave  amusement. 
Delia  suddenly  felt  herself  to  be  blushing  horribly.  In 
about  the  same  instant  she  felt  they  were  going  to  be  friends. 
She  had  already  been  a  little  astonished  to  find  herself 
talking  to  him  so  easily.  Ever  since  her  aunt  had  conceived 
the  fatal  resolve  she  had  been  sure  she  would  be  com- 
mitted to  the  tender  mercies  of  some  hopelessly  dull,  not 
to  say  vulgar  young  pedant.  Her  sisters  had  declared  it 
must  be  so  with  dreary  unanimity  ;  but  mother  had  hinted 
at  it ;  Aunt  Emma  herself  on  the  terrible  occasion  had  even 
drawn  the  portrait  of  that  kind  of  person.  Her  horrid 
])recautions  she  was  sure  must  inevitably  take  that  form. 
If  only  to  "  safeguard  her  " — a  phrase  she  could  only  under- 
stand faintly,  and  none  of  the  others  knew  precisely  what 
Aunt  Emma  intended  to  convey  by  it  either — she  was  sure 
she  would  be  crushed  fiat  under  a  very  Juggernaut  of 
learning.  But  this  young  man  did  not  seem  formidable 
at  all.  To  be  sure  he  was  not  very  prepossessing  to  look  at. 
The  first  glimpse  indeed  that  she  had  had  of  him  had 
almost  caused  her  to  shiver  ;  he  seemed  such  an  odd  mis- 

IIO 


ENTER   THE    TRUE    PRINCE 

shapen  clumsy,  ugly  creature.  However,  now  she  had 
got  more  used  to  the  sight  of  him  he  had  lost  something 
of  this  look  of  the  grotesque.  And  when  he  talked  he 
was  almost  nice. 

Still  the  only  thing  you  might  say  of  him  positively  was 
that  he  had  a  cleaTi  collar.  To  be  quite  fair  to  Aunt  Emma, 
her  emissary  had  clean  finger-nails  also  ;  probably  her  aunt 
intended  that  his  should  do  honour  to  hers.  She  didn't 
know  what  to  make  of  his  face.  Somehow  it  was  an  odd, 
queer  kind  of  face,  quite  the  frontispiece  you  would  expect 
to  such  an  odd,  queer  kind  of  head.  The  more  she  looked 
at  it  the  more  it  puzzled  her.  And  when  he  opened  his 
eyes  at  her  and  gave  her  that  whimsical  grave  smile  she 
felt  nonplussed  utterly.  His  face  was  no  longer  ugly 
when  he  smiled,  yet  even  then  it  was  not  retrieved  of  that 
suggestion  of  the  sombre,  which  was  perhaps,  when  all  was 
said,  the  predominant  factor  in  it.  His  face  was  very 
pale  and  worn  and  thin  ;  there  were  lines  on  the  forehead  ; 
and  the  prominence  of  the  cheek-bones  and  the  attenuation 
of  the  flesh  that  covered  them  gave  a  kind  of  mountain- 
and-valley  effect  to  the  upper  part  of  his  countenance  in 
conjunction  with  the  lower.  The  abrupt  walls  of  his  lean 
jaws  curved  into  the  shape  of  a  hatchet.  His  eyes  were 
large  and  melancholy,  of  a  grey  brooding  colour,  set  very 
deep,  and  with  a  rather  disconcerting  but  not  iinpleasant 
habit,  as  she  had  already  discovered,  of  coming  wide  open 
at  you  suddenly.  When  they  did  this  their  dimension 
was  a  little  astonishing.  His  forehead  came  forth  boldly, 
an  uncompromising  dome,  his  brows  were  strongly 
marked,  and  when  he  was  silent  the  thin  curves  of  his  Ups 
sealed  his  mouth  so  tightly  that  it  seeemed  hard  to  know 
how  ever  they  were  going  to  spring  apart.  His  natural 
expression  you  could  not  very  well  describe,  yet  it  needed 
but  a  httle  to  become  morose  and  even  slightly  frightening. 
That  was  singular  because  his  voice  was  so  different.  It 
was  a  low,  mild,  beguiling  voice,  not  in  the  least  harsh  or 
displeasing,  as  you  would  think  it  must  be.  It  had  already 
done  something  to  reconcile  her  to  her  hard  lot  that  she 
could  actually  sit  and  listen  to  it  without  the  smallest 
sensation  of  antagonism. 

•"  Would  you  say  that  a  book  was  worse  than  a  poacher  ?  " 

III 


BROKE    OF    COVENDEN 

"There  are  books  that  I  love,"  said  Delia,  with  a 
measure  of  hesitation  and  a  bright  colour. 

"  But  not  in  the  way  you  love  hunting  ?  " 

"  Yes,  the  books  I  mean.  I  love  them  quite  as  much, 
or — or  more." 

"  That  is  excellent ;  I  am  glad." 

"  Why  are  you  glad,  Mr.  Porter  ?  " 

"  I  think  I  may  hope.  You  see,  if  you  had  no  love  for 
books  you  would  find  my  presence  intolerable." 

"  Yes,  I  should." 

The  young  man  could  not  repress  another  smile  at  the 
deliberate  syllables  of  her  candour.  It  was  only  a  furtive 
one,  but  in  an  instant  crimson  flowed  across  her  face. 

"  I  beg  your  pardon  ;  I  have  been  rude." 

"  '  La  franchise  provoquani  la  franchise.'  I  assail  you  with 
Stendhal  to  show  that  I  am  hurt." 

"  Oh,  I  am  sure  I  beg  your  pardon." 

"  Your  sensitiveness  makes  me  more  hopeful  than  ever." 

"  I  will  try  to  deserve  your  kindness,"  said  Delia  with  a 
graciousness  born  of  his  own  demeanour.  He  was  not  con- 
sciously the  courtier,  but  his  tones  were  conciliatory,  and 
as  a  rule  her  sex  are  not  slow  to  grant  them  recognition. 

"  You  do  not  need  to  assure  me  of  that." 

"  I  will  try  to  be  worthy  of  your  patience.  But  please 
do  not  expect  too  much  of  me  ;  you  do  not  know  how 
stupid  I  am  at  learning  things." 

"  Tell  me  what  are  these  books  you  love." 

She  showed  no  eagerness  to  answer  the  question.  Inde- 
cision took  her,  and  it  made  her  dumb  when  he  looked  at 
her  in  the  particular  way  she  had  already  found  so  discon- 
certing. 

"  There  is  nothing  to  withhold,"  he  said  persuasively. 

"  They  are  not  at  all  what  I  ought  to  read,  I  know," 
she  said  at  last  with  an  effort.  "  They  are  poetry  and 
novels,  I  am  afraid." 

"  Aha  !  why  is  the  illicit  ever  so  delectable?  You  owe 
allegiance  to  the  reigning  monarchs,  I  presume ;  Miss 
Jones,  Mrs.  Smith,  and  Mr.  Alfred  So-and-So  ?  " 

"  I  have  only  one  favourite  among  the  writers  of  the 
present  day,"  said  Deiici. 

The  animation  of  her  companion's  manner  and  the  keen 

112 


ENTER   THE   TRUE    PRINCE 

way  in  which  he  put  his  questions  were  infectious.  There 
is  no  freemasonry  like  the  passion  for  books,  unless  it  be 
that  of  love.  The  arcana  of  the  order  are  magically  com- 
municated. There  was  an  eagerness  in  the  young  man's 
eyes  when  he  spoke  about  books  that  stripped  him,  as  far 
as  Delia  was  concerned,  of  at  least  half  the  terrifying 
reports  of  his  scholarship.  Even  his  strange  face  lost  a 
part  of  its  grimness. 

"  I  must  have  the  name  of  the  author." 

"  Meredith,"  said  Delia,  nervously. 

"  Alas  !  the  incorrigible  old  man.  I  trust  you  do  not 
respect  him  the  most  because  you  can  understand  him  the 
least." 

"  I  can  understaixd  all  the  parts  I  want  to  understand,  I 
think." 

"  And  skip  those  that  you  can't  ?  " 

"  I  am  not  in  the  habit  of  skipping." 

"  Of  course,  of  course  !  The  suggestion  was  unworthy.- 
But  tell  me,  do  you  prefer  his  poetry  or  his  novels  ?  " 

"  There  are  heaps  and  heaps  of  poetry  I  love  more  than 
his  ;  but  when  I  read  his  novels  my  pleasure  almost  frightens 
me. 

"  Hyperbole." 

"  I  am  sure,  Mr.  Porter,  you  know  what  I  mean.  I  can 
see  it  in  your  face." 

"  Well,  well !  Which  of  his  heroines  would  you  choose 
to  be  ?  Clara  Middleton  ?  If  I  were  a  woman,  I  would 
choose  to  be  her,  just  as  being  a  man  I  want  to  be  her  hero." 

"  If  I  could  be  the  heroine  out  of  a  story,  I  think  I  would 
choose  to  be  Diana  Vernon." 

"  Yes,  I  daresay  she  was  rather  better  to  hounds,  but  I 
doubt  whether  she  could  run  like  Clara.  And  I  am  sure 
her  complexion  was  not  so  fine,  although  there  was  more 
of  it  possibly  ;  and  Clara's  wit  was  more  polished,  and  I 
believe  she  was  just  a  lee-tle  bit  more  the  lady.  Not  that 
these  are  qualities  to  count  in  a  lady  in  a  tale,  or  in  real 
life  perhaps,  in  the  incredibly  fair  creature  with  whom  we 
chance  to  fall  in  love.  But  it  sticks  in  my  mind  that  Clara 
was  slightly  the  more  beautiful." 

"  But  I  am  sure,  Mr.  Porter,  that  Diana  had  the  grander 
character.     She  always  puts  me  in  mind  of  my  sister 

113  H 


BROKE    OF    COVENDEN 

Joan.  She  has  a  grand  character.  You  will  be  sure  to 
meet  her,  and  I  hope  you  will,  for  I  am  sure  you  are  just 
two  people  who  would  like  one  another.  I  think  my  sister 
will  impress  you." 

"  I  gather  that  the  great  Sir  Walter  is  another  of  your 
friends  ?  " 

"  I  am  afraid  I  worship  him." 

"  And  the  poets  ?  " 

"  Keats  is  my  favourite  of  them  all." 

"  And  then  ?  " 

"  And  then  there  is  the  Faerie  Queene." 

"  And  then  ?  " 

"  And  then  there  is  Shakespeare,  and  those  lovely  short 
pieces  in  Milton,  and  Adonais,  and  some  little  pieces  of 
Dryden,  and  some  of  the  translations  I  have  read  of  Homer; 
Chapman  I  love  best  because  he  rolls  out  so  grandly  ; 
and  then  there's  Swinburne  and  Rossetti,  and  Tennyson, 
and  some  of  those  beautiful  dusty  old  poets  in  the 
brown  volumes  on  the  shelves  there  right  at  the  top — 
Herrick,  and  Marlowe,  and  Webster,  and  Fletcher,  and 
Drummond  of  Hawthornden.  Oh !  and  I  love  Mr.  Henley, 
and  Michael  Drayton." 

"  What  about  Chaucer  ?  " 

"  I  think  I  love  Chaucer  best  of  all." 

"  And  to  return  to  the  poor  prose-men  ?  " 

"  I  think  poor  dear  old  Don  Quixote  is  the  one  I  worship 
most.     He  sometimes  makes  me  think  of  my  father." 

"  Your  father  did  not  appear  to  be  mounted  on  Rozinante 
when  we  met  this  morning.  There  was  rather  a  Ber- 
trand  du  Guesclin  look  about  him.  But  it  is  my  duty  to 
insist  that  you  worship  Robinson  Crusoe." 

"  I  do  indeed,  and  Treasure  Island  too,  and  the  Three 
Musketeers." 

"  And  Pilgrim's  Progress  and  one  Sir  Thomas  Mallory  ?  " 

"Oh,  yes,  and  Ruskin  and  Charles  Lamb;  and  I  believe 
the  wicked  To7n  Jones  if  I  dare,  only  Aunt  Emma  caught 
me  reading  him  one  day,  and  she  was  so  shocked  that  she 
had  him  burnt — four  volumes  of  him,  and  if  took  me  weeks 
and  weeks  to  live  down  the  disgrace." 

"  That  is  an  anecdote  that  will  have  to  be  retold  in  the 
biography  of  the  author  of  Poses  in  the  Opaque" 

114 


CHAPTER  IX 
Startling  Development  of  the  Heroine 

TUTOR  and  pupil  caught  themselves  smiling  at  the 
mention  of  the  magic  name. 

"  Is  it  my  duty  to  admire  her  ?  "  said  Delia  gravely. 

"  Your  critical  judgment  fits  you  to  answer  the  question 
for  yourself." 

"  I  am  so  relieved,"  said  Delia. 

Her  sigh  of  satisfaction  was  fetched  so  deep  that  he 
turned  his  laugh  upon  the  little  lady. 

"  Splendid  !  "  he  said.  "  I  recognize  the  spirit  of 
No-compromise — the  spirit  that  enabled  those  ancestors 
of  yours  to  bleed  for  their  opinions." 

"  I  don't  know  about  that,"  said  Delia;  "  I  suppose  it  is 
all  very  wrong  and  very  wicked,  but  that  is  how  I  feel. 
My  sisters  are  the  same.  If  people  are  our  friends, 
we  love  them ;  but  if  they  are  not  our  friends.  I — I  am 
afraid !  " 

Something  flashed  so  vividly  out  of  the  child's  eyes, 
that  his  attention  was  called  for  the  first  time  to  their 
quality.  Rather  extraordinary  eyes  he  thought  they 
were  ;  not  arresting  perhaps  to  a  cursory  look,  but  once 
you  had  seen  them  you  required  to  see  them  again.  Blue 
was  their  colour  :  blue  as  ocean  and  sky ;  blue  demanding 
a  Meredithian  simile  if  you  chanced  to  catch  them  in  a 
moment  when  you  might  surprise  what  slept  beneath  the 
veil  that  kept  their  mysteries.  The  flash  had  revealed  her. 
Looking  through  it  at  her,  with  the  piercing  gaze  of  the 
artist  and  the  connoisseur  he  saw  she  was  an  exquisite  little 
creature  in  her  way.  Although  even  as  he  was  travelling 
to  this  fact  he  paid  to  himself  the  compliment  that  it  was 

115 


BROKE   OF   COVENDEN 

not  a  perfunctory  vision  that  so  interpreted  her.  The 
requisite  amount  of  deUcate  alertness  was  demanded  to 
evolve  so  rare  a  kernel  out  of  a  shell. 

"  You  love  poetry,  Mr.  Porter.     I  know  you  do  !  " 

"  How  do  you  know  ?  " 

"  It  is  in  your  voice  and  your  eyes  when  you  speak  about 
it.  It  is  delicious  to  be  able  to  talk  of  it  just  as  one  feels. 
That  is  if  I  may  ;  you  will  allow  me,  will  you  not  ?  " 

"  Why  not  ?  I  would  rather  talk  of  poetry  to  the  right 
person  than  do  anything  else  in  the  world." 

"  Alas  !  the  right  person." 

"  You  must  allow  me  to  choose  her." 

Delia  felt  herself  flushing  nervously  under  the  whimsical 
assurance  of  his  eyes.  She  feared  him  already  ;  and  yet 
in  the  most  singular  way  he  was  easier  to  talk  to  than  any 
one  she  had  ever  known.  With  her  father,  her  sisters,  her 
Uncle  Charles,  all  of  whom  in  a  sense  were  her  boon  com- 
panions, and  of  whom  she  was  no  more  afraid  than  they 
were  of  her,  she  had  never  found  herself  conversing  so 
swiftly,  so  pleasantly,  never  with  so  little  difficulty  in 
expressing  her  thoughts,  and  with  so  many  thoughts 
surging  to  be  expressed.  She  was  really  far  more  afraid, 
absurd  as  such  a  thing  might  seem,  of  this  new  strange 
friend  of  hers  than  she  was  of  her  mother  and  her  Aunt 
Emma.  He  gave  her,  even  when  he  appeared  to  try  to 
minimize  it,  a  far  keener  sense  of  her  own  littleness  than 
did  they,  although  so  often  it  had  seemed  to  her  that 
they  strove  might  and  main  to  inflict  her  with  that 
effect.  But  this  inscrutable  man  was  quite  apart  in  her 
experience.  A  baffling,  a  fascinating,  an  elusive  some- 
thing lurked  behind  that  beguiling  voice.  Ten  men's 
natures  merged  in  one  might  have  employed  his  laugh 
to  express  their  single  complex  entity.  Again,  his 
simplicity  was  very  baffling  too.  She  actually  found  him 
easier  to  talk  to  than  Jane,  or  Harriet,  or  Margaret; 
he  seemed  such  a  wonderfully  human  being ;  yet  all  the 
time  she  conversed  with  him  there  was  a  chance  that  he 
might  be  some  inordinately  cunning  thing  who  was  only 
pretending  to  be  human  after  all.  He  might  be  amusing 
himself  by  deceiving  her.  There  was  just  a  fear  that  it 
might  be  a  case  of  little  Red  Riding  Hood.     He  might 

ii6 


DEVELOPMENT    OF   THE   HEROINE 

be  a  wolf  or  a  dragon  who  of  a  sudden  would  throw  off 
his  cloak  of  a  lover  of  poetry,  put  out  a  paw  and  gobble 
her  up.  Because  whatever  pains  he  was  at  to  show  her 
he  was  as  perfectly  elementary  as  she  was  herself,  she  was 
sure  he  was  nothing  of  the  kind.  In  mental  stature  he 
was  superhuman,  he  was  a  giant,  and  it  was  not  a  bit 
of  good  his  trying  to  disguise  the  fact.  There  was  nothing 
of  the  Jane  or  Harriet  quality  about  this  slightly  weird 
simplicity  of  his. 

"  I  know  I  shall  bore  you  very  much,  Mr.  Porter,"  she 
said  eagerly  but  fearfully,  "  but  you  do  not  know  how  I 
long  to  talk  to  you.  You  see  all  my  sisters  despise  books  ; 
and  even  my  mother  is  not  a  lover  of  poetry." 

"  That  is  surprising  !  "  The  young  man  permitted 
himself  an  arch  smile. 

"  She  says  a  fondness  for  poetry  ought  to  be  prescribed 
for  like  a  disease." 

"  She  insists  on  the  scientific  and  the  useful  ?  " 

"  Not  altogether.     She  is,  oh,  so  dreadfully  clever." 

"  Ah,  my  prophetic  soul !  Suppose  we  say  her  idea 
of  literature  is  something  that  will  get  examination  marks 
or  put  meat  in  the  pot  or  coals  on  the  fire  ?  Well,  it  hap- 
pens that  the  terms  of  my  mission  render  it  necessary 
that  I  shall  regard  it  in  that  light  myself,  at  the  rate  of 
two  shillings  and  sixpence  an  hour." 

"  Yes,  but  as  we  know  what  it  is  we  shall  only  be 
playing  a  game,  shall  we  not  ?  When  we  study  philosophy 
we  can  pretend  it's  Keats.  And  we  shall  be  able  to 
make  believe  when  we  are  toiling  with  Aristotle  and  Plato 
that  they  are  dear  Sir  Walter  Scott." 

"  So  we  shall !  " 

"  You  are  going  to  give  me  the  keVs  to  those  great 
things  I  cannot  read.  You  will  unlock  the  doors  that 
hold  their  meaning  that  I  may  understand  the  wonderful 
prose  which  is  so  grand  and  so  bewildering,  the  poetry 
that  haunts  you  all  night  and  every  night  like  the  voices  in 
the  trees." 

The  child  bent  forward  eagerly  with  her  hands  locked 
round  her  little  knees,  and  as  she  did  so  the  tears  sprang 
suddenly  into  her  eyes. 

"  Hullo  ■  a  spark  of  the  sacred  flame  I  " 

117 


BROKE   OF   COVENDEN 

*'  Please  you  will  not  laugh  at  me  !  " 

"  It  would  be  a  sacrilege.  It  is  the  stuff  of  which  once 
upon  a  time  this  poetry  was  made.  In  the  day  of  the 
common  danger,  or  the  common  wrong  it  was  exaltations 
such  as  these  that  emitted  the  native  woodnotes  wild  of 
which  we  of  the  tepid,  ultra-civilized,  over-secure  twentieth 
century  are  the  inheritors.  Has  your  race  ever  had  a 
poet,  Miss  Broke  ?     I  cannot  recall  one." 

"  There  is  a  Lady  Margaret  Broke,  who  composed  a 
Book  of  Hours  in  the  reign  of  Edward  the  Third.  I  do 
not  think  you  will  call  it  very  fine  poetry." 

"  May  I  ask  if  Miss  Delia  Broke  has  made  the  attempt 
to  remove  this  stigma  of  poetical  sterility  from  her 
family  ? " 

"  No — yes — that  is,  at  least !  " 

Her  friend  regarded  the  tokens  of  her  too  vivid  em- 
barrassment with  a  pretence  of  gravity.  Even  as  she 
struggled  with  her  tormenting  blushes  she  felt  how  im- 
possible it  was  to  keep  a  secret  from  those  unsparing 
eyes.  Her  fear  of  him  was  suddenly  reasserted.  But 
she  was  powerless  to  confess  her  guilt  even  while  her 
silence  published  it. 

"  Since  when  have  you  been  a  poet  ?  " 

Never  before  had  she  made  the  confession  ;  and  with  that 
morbid  dread  of  criticism  that  may  possess  the  most 
sensitive  of  her  kind  she  had  felt  it  would  be  impossible 
to  reveal  her  secret.  But  the  murder  was  out  now  ;  she 
stood  convicted  before  this  inexorable  judge,  who  seemed 
to  have  the  power  to  pierce  through  every  fibre  that  com- 
posed her. 

"  Let  me  see  your  poetry." 

"  No — no,  I  cannot  I  "  said  Delia,  a  little  wildly  "  It — 
it  is  not  meant  to  be  seen." 

"  Are  you  quite  sure  about  that  ?  " 

"  I  am  quite  sure  !  " 

"  Reflect  a  little.  Think  out  exactly  how  you  feel  about 
it.  I  know  a  little  myself  of  the  inmost  feelings  of 
authors." 

"  I  am  quite  sure." 

"  Reflect  a  little  longer.  The  inmost  feelings  of  authors 
are  vvoefull}'  comple:i:." 

Ii8 


DEVELOPMENT   OF    THE    HEROINE 

'*  Indeed  I  am  quite  sure  my  wTetched  writings  were 
never  intended  for  you  to  read." 

"  Reflect  a  minute  longer.  The  whole  truth  is  worth 
a  struggle." 

"  They  would  make  you  despise  me  dreadfully." 

"  Tn  your  heart  you  are  not  so  sure." 

"  Oh,  how  can  you  know  that !  " 

"  I  know  it  only  too  well.  I  too  am  cursed  with  the 
same  itch.  And  we  are  all  alike,  we  authors.  Nature  is 
careful  of  the  type.  We,  you  and  I,  Miss  Delia  Broke 
and  Mr.  Alfred  Porter,  write  to  be  read  as  much  as  ever 
Virgil  and  Milton  did." 

Delia  began  to  grow  irresolute.  There  was  something 
very  uncompromising  under  his  laugh. 

"  Suppose  3^ou  fetch  them  for  me  to  see  ?  "  His  in- 
flection of  persuasiveness  somehow  left  no  margin  for  refusal. 

"  Oh,  I  could  not,  indeed  I  could  not !  "  cried  poor  Delia. 

"  A  poet  must  be  prepared  to  face  his  responsibilities. 
These  things  of  ours  are  wrought  for  the  embellishment 
of  truth,  the  embodiment  of  beautj'.  They  can  achieve 
neither  the  one  nor  the  other  if  they  are  immured.  We 
poets  must  purchase  the  courage  of  our  endeavours,  and 
learn  to  endure  the  carpings  of  fools,  and  the  censure  of 
those  wiser  and  more  righteous  than  ourselves." 

"  But  I  am  not  a  poet ;  indeed  I  do  not  pretend  to 
be  a  poet,"  said  Delia,  taking  fright  at  his  pretence  of 
austerity. 

"  Nothing  can  save  you  from  the  charge.  You  have 
committed  your  thoughts  to  paper  in  the  choicest  form 
at  your  command.  I  hope  you  do  not  wish  a  fellow* 
craftsman  to  understand  that  you  have  not  wrought  the 
best  that  is  in  you." 

"  I  was  very  much  in  earnest  when  I  wrote  them.  But 
I  feel  how  poor  they  must  be." 

"  You  would  hardly  have  preserved  them  had  you  felt 
that." 

"  Indeed  I  do  feel  it ;  I  do  indeed  !  " 

"  You  think  like  that  towards  them  in  your  moments  of 
reaction,  but  in  those  of  your  impulse  you  have  a  sharp 
sense  of  their  beatitude.  They  stand  out  then  in  the 
radiant  colours  in  which  you  wrought  them  originally, 

119 


BROKE    OF   COVENDEN 

and  even  seem  worthy  of  the  mood  in  which  they  were  con- 
ceived." 

DeHa  was  beginning  to  learn  already  how  impotent  she 
was  before  him.  She  had  denied  the  existence  of  her 
writings  when  he  had  surprised  the  secret  in  her  ;  he  had 
made  her  confess  that  they  were  composed  for  a  public, 
had  she  only  had  the  courage  to  commit  them  to  it ; 
and  now  he  was  about  to  compel  her  to  vdeld  them  to  the 
light  when  her  reticence  shuddered  at  the  act.  It  was  as 
though  a  new  force  had  caught  her.  There  was  not  a 
loophole  by  which  he  allowed  her  to  escape  the  conse- 
quences of  her  deeds.  The  thoughts  she  had  ventured  to 
embody  were  summoned  to  pay  a  toll  for  their  existence. 
His  pertinacity  caused  her  to  see  a  kind  of  justice  in  it,  and 
presently  with  many  aches  and  misgivings  she  rose  to  do 
his  will. 

While  Delia  went  to  procure  these  first-fruits  of  her 
young  imagination,  her  tutor  turned  his  attention  to  the 
library  shelves.  There  were  few  new  books,  but  some 
delightful  old  ones.  It  was  a  collection  that  owed  little 
to  the  present  generation  of  its  owners,  but  was  rather 
an  accretion  of  centuries.  His  eyes  glowed  at  a  sight  so 
delectable.  When  Delia  returned,  bearing  her  treasures 
like  babes  in  her  arms  before  her,  he  was  preoccupied  with 
a  sense  of  pleasures  to  come.  He  saw  the  promise  of  many 
Arcadian  hours. 

Delia's  writings  were  well  calculated  to  exhiV)it  the  scope 
and  calibre  of  her  mind.  They  comprised  poems,  plays, 
essays,  hymns,  short  stones,  and  fragments  of  several 
novels.  They  were  carefully  rolled  into  some  twenty  little 
tubes  of  white  paper,  sedulously  clean,  and  tied  with  blue 
ribbon.  They  represented  the  activities  of  a  prolific  pen 
and  a  lively  imagination  since  the  age  of  twelve.  With 
Mr.  Porter's  aid  they  were  laid  reverently  side  by  side 
upon  the  table  before  the  fire. 

"  Do  your  worst,  Mr.  Critic,"  she  said,  outwardly  calm, 
but  with  a  beating  heart.  "  They  are  arranged  like  the 
woiks  of  Shakespeare,  in  the  order  of  time.  The  date 
of  their  birth  is  written  outside.  Please  do  not  look 
at  the  early  ones.     They  will  make  you  laugh." 

The  child  affected  a  note  of   gaiety   that   hardly   rang 

1 20 


DEVELOPMENT    OF   THE   HEROINE 

true.  The  tumult  within  was  very  high.  With  a  'Short 
little  laugh  and  a  rather  high  colour,  she  selected  the  first 
roll  to  pass  in  judgment  before  her  critic.  Not  improperly' 
it  was  a  poem  on  a  tragic  theme.  It  was  inspired  by  the 
death  of  Cutlass,  a  gallant  but  too  intrepid  hound,  who 
took  a  somewhat  informal  departure  from  this  life,  because 
he  chose  to  cross  the  railway  when  hounds  were  in  full 
cry  at  the  moment  the  express  from  London  had  chosen 
to  cross  it  also. 

Tlie  critic  glanced  at  it  with  an  immobility  of  counten- 
ance that  could  not  be  read,  rolled  it  up  and  replaced  it 
without  a  word  of  comment.  He  then  turned  his  attention 
to  prose  and  the  drama.  These  did  not  elicit  a  word  from 
him  either.  He  then  took  up  an  essay  ;  it  was  called 
"  An  Appreciation  of  Lord  Tennyson."  This  also  he  read 
in  a  silence  as  complete  as  that  in  which  he  had  read  the 
others. 

Delia  watched  every  phase  of  his  impassiveness  while 
she  tried  not  to  do  so.  She  strove  very  hard  to  attain  that 
stoical  indifference  which  she  was  sure  her  sister  Joan 
M'ould  have  been  able  to  exhibit  in  these  circumstances. 
But  she  felt  ruefully  that  nature  had  not  fashioned  her 
on  a  principle  so  heroic.  Her  fibres  were  too  pliant,  too 
flaccid  ;  her  self-command  almost  failed  her.  The  silence 
of  the  critic  was  a  relief  in  a  sense,  but  also  it  was  bitterly 
disappointing. 

"  Are  they — are  they  quite  hopeless?  "  she  ventured  to 
ask  at  last,  faintly. 

"Suppose  we  bum  them." 

She  recoiled,  aghast.  It  was  like  a  hit  in  the  face.  A 
course  so  extreme  had  never  entered  her  mind.  The 
criticism  she  dreaded  she  had  been  steeling  her  heart  to 
bear  ;  but  total  annihilation  struck  too  fiercely  at  the 
roots  of  sentiment.  The  twenty  little  rolls  were  dear 
and  faithful  friends  who  had  nourished  her  lonely  spirit 
secretly  when  all  the  world  had  been  unkind. 

"  N — no,  I  could  not  burn  them,"  she  said  in  a  thin  little 
voice. 

Her  tone  caused  the  critic  to  look  at  her  keenly.  "  It 
may  seem  a  little  drastic,"  he  said,  "  but  that  is  the  only 
way  for  the  pjrtist." 

121 


BROKE   OF    COVENDEN 

'*  I — I  do  not  think  of  myself  as  an  artist  at  all." 

"  I  pay  you  the  compliment  of  looking  at  you  in  thai 
light." 

"  But  I  am  sure  I  would  prefer  not  to  be  an  artist  and 
be  allowed  to  keep  my  treasures,  than  be  an  artist  and  have 
them  cruelly  destroyed." 

"  Think,"  said  the  critic,  enfolding  her  with  a  melcincholy 
smile,  "  achievement  means  blood  and  tears  and  the 
fire." 

"  Oh,  I  am  sure  I  could  never  consent  to  have  them 
burned.  My  mother  found  them  once  in  their  hiding- 
place  and  said  she  would  burn  them,  and  I  passed  a 
dreadful  week  in  consequence.  My  sister  Joan  might  be 
able  to  bear  it  if  they  were  hers  ;  yes,  she  would,  for  her 
courage  is  so  great ;   but  I  am  a  wretched  coward." 

"  You  must  have  courage  too,"  said  the  young  man 
with  the  pertinacity  that  had  defeated  her  before.  "  The 
title  of  artist  is  not  lightly  to  be  renounced.  The  laurels 
are  a  crown  of  thorns  ;  but  the  blood  and  tears  they  draw 
out  of  us  are  replaced  by  certain  ecstasies  of  the  spirit. 
Courage,  courage,  always  courage  !  " 

His  face  was  quite  bewildering  in  its  complexity. 

"  You  almost  frighten  me,"  said  Delia,  quailing.  "  I — 
I — I  feel  so  mean." 

"  Try  not  to  judge  yourself  harshly." 

"  But  ought  not  one  to  be  honest  in  one's  judgment  of 
oneself  ?  " 

"  Ah,  but  what  of  the  natures  whose  owners  have  not  the 
power  to  judge  ?  Perhaps  this  nature  of  yours  may  prove 
stronger  than  you  know." 

The  child  shivered. 

"  I  am  sure  I  could  not,  I  am  sure  I  could  not !  "  she 
cried,  training  a  sidelong  look  upon  her  precious  posses- 
sions. "  Besides,  Mr.  Porter,  was  not  Shakespeare  an  artist  ? 
yet  he  never  blotted  a  line." 

"  I  would  he  had  blotted  a  thousand.  Even  genius 
must  not  fear  the  sword  and  the  fire." 

"  Oh,  how  hard,  how  very  hard  !  " 

"  Yes,  but  Art  is  the  most  arduous  thing  in  the  world. 
The  artist  must  not  know  the  meaning  of  fear.  He  has 
to  laboiu  early  and  late  with  sinews  of  steel  and  an  in* 

122 


DEVELOPMENT    OF   THE   HEROINE 

flexible  courage  in  his  heart  to  fight  the  two-fold  battle 
of  truth  and  beauty  against  every  form  of  error.  There 
must  be  no  vacillation,  no  hanging  back  on  the  part  of 
those  who  enter  that  service.  The  wounds  are  many  and 
grievous,  the  toils  severe,  the  pleasures  vague,  the  rewards 
transitory  and  too  often  a  mockery,  but  the  humblest  foot- 
soldier  in  its  ranks  has  no  time  to  spare  to  thoughts  like 
these.  He  suffers  great  penalties  and  renounces  the  flesh 
simply  to  say,  This  is  Me,  This  is  my  Soul." 

Delia  regarded  her  tutor  with  a  grave  bewilderment. 
He  had  spoken  with  something  of  the  fanaticism  of  the 
high  priest,  yet  there  was  a  reserve  of  control  over  all  he 
said.  There  was  neither  morbid  passion  in  his  voice  nor 
hectic  madness  in  his  face.  In  her  youthful  chivalry  she 
recognized  that  it  was  the  strong  calling  on  the  weak  to 
gird  itself  in  resolve.  Her  fear  of  him,  at  first  an  instinct, 
was  mounting  to  a  pitch  that  made  her  shrink. 

"  You  mean  we  must  be  true  to  ourselves,"  she  said, 
with  a  startled  look. 

"  Yes,  let  us  do  the  best  that  is  in  us.  Let  it  be  said 
that  we  wrought  as  good  as  we  knew.  What  man  or 
woman  of  us  all  can  seek  more  ?  " 

"  You  make  me  feel  how  great  your  ideals  are." 

"  And  yours  ?  " 

"  I  do  try  to  have  my  Ideal." 

"  Well,  if  you  can,  give  me  an  outline  of  its  nature." 

"  I  should  like  to  have  a  splendid  character  like  my 
sister  Joan." 

"  That  is  an  answer  for  which  I  was  prepared.  Now 
I  want  you  to  take  up  the  best  of  these  performances  of 
yours  and  read  it  again.  When  you  have  read  it,  I 
shall  ask  you  to  answer  a  few  questions  about  it." 

Obediently  Delia  took  up  her  most  recent  performance, 
"  A  Ballad  in  Imitation  of  Master  Francis  Villon." 

"  Now,"  said  he,  when  she  had  read  it,  "  do  you  think 
if  you  wrote  it  again  you  could  make  it  better  ?  " 

"No,  not  myself  personally.  It  seems  much  nearer 
what  I  meant  than  anything  I  have  tried  to  do  before. 
Of  course  a  real  poet  would  be  ashamed  of  it,  but  I  do 
not  feel  I  could  make  it  better  myself." 

"  You  are  convinced  ?  " 

123 


BROKE    OF    COVENDEN 

"  Yes.  T  think  T  am,"  said  Delia  nervously. 

"  Well,  now,"  said  the  young  man  in  a  peculiarly  kind 
voice,  "  I  learn  from  the  manner  of  your  ballad  that 
you  did  not  go  to  the  real  Villon,  but  to  Dante  Gabriel 
Rossetti.     May  I  ask  why  ?  " 

"  I  cannot  read  Villon  as  well  as  I  can  Rossetti." 

"  Yes,  the  mediaeval  French  has  to  be  grappled  with. 
But  now  I  ask  you,  do  you  think  you  could  improve  your 
ballad  if  you  found  the  original  to  be  as  clear  as  the  trans- 
lation of  Rossetti  ?  " 

Delia  did  not  answer  until  she  had  thought  the  matter 
out. 

"  Perhaps  I  could  just  a  little  in  some  ways,"  she  con- 
fessed reluctanth'. 

"  But  the  old  French  is  very  hard  to  get  on  with  ?  " 

"  Yes,  I — I  am  afraid  it  is." 

"  Well,  now,  I  ask  you  what  would  your  sister  Joan  do 
in  such  circumstances  ?  " 

"  She  would  not  have  ^^Titten  it,"  said  Delia,  quickly. 
"  Her  tastes  are  not  at  all  in  the  direction  of  poetry." 

"  Ha !  there  must  be  no  scope  for  feminine  incon- 
sequence," he  said,  laughing  at  her  eagerness.  "  You  are 
to  assume  that  you  yourself  are  your  sister  Joan.  Now 
tell  me  the  course  you  would  be  likely  to  adopt,  according 
to  your  conception  of  her  character." 

"  Perhaps  I  might  learn  to  read  old  French,"  said  the 
child,  blushing  vividly.  She  saw  suddenly,  with  a  tinge  oi 
shame,  where  the  ambush  lay. 

"  And  afterwards  do  you  not  think  you  might  remodel 
your  ballad  by  the  light  of  your  fuller  knowledge  ?  And  do 
you  not  feel  that  your  imitation  would  be  more  faithful  ?  " 

Delia  replied  by  placing  her  ballad  into  the  fire. 

"  And  now  the  others.  H  -you  apply  the  same  standard 
to  them,  the\^  cannot  hope  to  fare  better." 

For  a  moment  she  stood  in  the  throes  of  her  irresolution. 
The  conflict  soon  passed,  however.  Now  the  first  step 
was  taken  she  was  too  tliorousrh-going  to  be  content  with 
half  measures.  One  by  one  stoically  she  began  to  commit 
her  cherished  manuscripts  to  the  fire.  To  be  sure  it  was 
an  act  of  Spartan  resolution  ;  but  she  held  her  mouth  tight, 
and  kept  the  tears  out  of  her  eyes  somehow,  and  tried  to 

124' 


DEVELOPMENT   OF  THE   HEROINE 

fix  her  mind  firmly  on  her  sister  Joan.  Nor  did  she 
gather  consolation  from  the  attitude  of  him  who  was  the 
instigator  of  this  inhuman  hardihood.  He  wasted  no 
sympathy  upon  the  signal  deed,  but  superintended  its 
performance  almost  as  a  matter  of  course.  However, 
when  he  took  two  roll?  in  his  hands  with  the  object  of  com- 
mitting them  personally  to  perdition,  it  was  a  straw  too 
much. 

"  Put  them  down,  please,"  she  said  fiercely.  "  I  cannot 
have  you  touch  them  ;  I  cannot  have  anybody  touch  them 
but  myself.  They  are  mine  :  I  made  them,  and  I  will 
make  an  end  of  them.     I  must  burn  them  myself,  please." 

Tears  were  very  imminent.  It  is  not  easy,  even  for 
your  truly  Spartan  character,  consciously  to  perform  a 
deed  of  the  first  grade  of  heroism  and  not  have  it  re- 
cognized as  such  by  pubhc  opinion. 

"  You  must  not  think  I  underrate  your  heroism.  I  am 
not  sure  that  I  could  have  done  it  myself." 

"  You — you  do  not  know  how  dear  they  are  to  me," 
said  poor  Doha. 

"  I  might  not  have  asked  you  to  destroy  them  had  that 
been  the  case.  I,  too,  know  what  the  fire  is,  and  must 
keep  acquainted  with  it  for  full  many  a  long  and  weary 
year." 

"  I  feel  crupl  ;  I  feel  wicked !"  wailed  poor  Delia.  "  I 
do  not  know  why  I  am  destroying  them ;  I  am  sure  I  did 
not  mean  to." 

"  Nay,  do  not  look  on  them  as  dead.  They  are  the  seeds 
that  one  day  will  raise  the  flower.  Who  can  tell  what 
shall  spring  from  these  balls  of  white  fluff.  One  wonders 
how  much  Milton  burnt  when  he  was  young.  Now  suppose 
you  do  not  put  pen  to  paper  again  for  a  whole  year  in  the 
way  of  composition.  You  shall  read  what  you  choose  in 
the  meantime,  for  your  taste  is  too  pure  to  lead  you 
astray.  You  have  no  voice  at  present,  it  would  be  astonish- 
ing if  you  had ;  but  give  yourself  up  to  those  who  have 
spoken  greatly  to  the  ages,  and  perhaps  in  the  course  of 
time  you  may  be  numbered  among  them.  What  thoughts 
they  induce  do  not  trouble  to  write  down,  but  let  them  lie 
fallow.  And  I  think  we  youthful  seekers  after  Truth: — yes, 
since  you  have  shown  yourself  capable  of  this  degree  of 

125 


BROKE    OF    COVENDEN 

devotion  to  a  principle,  as  a  fellow  cadet  of  our  service  1 
presume  to  offer  you  half  of  my  badge — I  think  we  ought, 
in  the  first  place,  to  aim  at  that  sovereign  humility  which 
nature  imposes  upon  all  before  they  are  allowed  to  see  her 
face. 

The  young  man  concluded  his  exordium  with  a  strange 
light  shining  in  his  face.  But  poor  Delia  continued  her 
painful  task,  heeding  not  the  prophet.  By  now,  in  the 
effort  to  arrest  them,  tears  had  come  at  last  into  her  eyes. 
And  there  they  remained  in  the  most  persistent  and 
ridiculous  fashion  until  all  the  little  w^hite  rolls  tied  vnth 
blue  ribbon  had  been  committed  tenderly,  unrelentingly 
to  the  flames. 


126 


CHAPTER  X 

Tact :  with  Sidelights  on  the   Sovereign 
Quality 

DELIA  was  on  her  knees  pressing  the  last  of  these 
sacred  packets  between  the  bars,  with  tears  still 
glistening  in  her  eyes,  at  the  moment  Mrs.  Broke  chose 
to  enter  the  library. 

"  Deep  in  the  mysteries  of  ipsilon  and  upsilon  I  do  not 
doubt,"  said  the  fluent  lady. 

However,  the  attitude  in  which  her  daughter  was  dis- 
covered gave  pause  even  to  her  indomitable  readiness. 

"Oh,  mother  !  "  cried  Delia,  "  I  am  burning  my  manu- 
scripts." Her  words  were  accompanied  by  an  audible 
evidence  of  grief. 

"  Do  you  mean  those  absurd  things  I  once  found  in  your 
room  ?  " 

Mrs.  Broke  gave  a  smile  to  the  tutor. 

"  A  most  remarkable  morning's  work,"  she  said.  "  I 
must  make  j'ou  my  compliments,  Mr.  Porter,  upon  your 
firmness  of  character,  I  must  indeed.  How  you  have 
contrived  it  I  do  not  know,  but  I  am  sure  I  personally  am 
very  grateful.  So  they  are  actually  destroyed !  And 
may  I  venture  to  hope  that  the  folly  is  forsworn  ?  " 

"  For  a  year  at  least,"  said  the  young  man. 

"  Excellent.  I  see  your  tact.  You  do  not  wish  to 
provoke  a  fresh  outburst  by  too  harsh  a  prohibition.  She 
is  to  be  cured  by  degrees.  Again,  Mr.  Porter,  I  must  con- 
gratulate you  upon  such  a  beginning.  I  hope  you  will 
stay  to  lunch." 

The  young  man  having  signified  his  willingness,  Mrs. 

127 


BROKE    OF    COVENDEN 

Broke  led  the  way  to  the  dining  room.  The  repast  was 
of  a  singularly  fmgal  nature ;  but  the  conversation  of  the 
hostess  was  very  gracious,  charming,  and  incessant.  Delia, 
on  the  other  hand,  was  kept  within  the  limits  of  a  silence 
that  became  a  small  child  out  of  the  schoolroom.  The 
conversation,  or,  more  properly,  the  monologue,  for  at  first 
the  young  man's  share  of  it  was  extremely  slight,  hovered 
about  the  topic  of  literature.  He  was  entertained  by  the 
melodious  chatter  of  this  agile  woman.  The  attitude  she 
took  was  delerential :  it  repeatedly  canvassed  his  opinion 
and  insisted  on  her  own  humility.  Still,  her  humility 
hardly  amoimted  to  awe.  For  not  only  was  she  very  pat 
with  opinions  of  her  own,  but  also  she  seemed  to  be 
acquainted  with  a  little  of  everything  that  had  been 
embalmed  between  two  covers,  and  that  little  generally 
coincided  with  the  \'erdict  of  the  world. 

"  You  are  an  earnest  admirer  of  Lady  Bosket  of 
course  ?  " 

"  On  the  contrarj^  I  cannot  count  myself  as  one  of  the 
elect." 

"I  beg  your  pardon." 

"  On  the  contrary,  I  cannot  count  myself  as  one  of  the 
elect." 

The  5'oung  man  repeated  his  answer  without  the  faintest 
display  of  trei^dation.  His  amused  coolness,  and  his 
complete  freedom  from  apologetic  vacillation,  took  the 
fluent  lady  aback.  It  was  so  unlooked  for.  Yet,  after  all, 
such  a  frankness  had  its  piquancy. 

"  Surely  you  admire  her  '  Poses '  ?  " 

"  I  confess  they  amuse  me  a  little." 

"  May  I  confess  that  on  my  own  part  this  is  the  first 
time  I  have  heard  them  accused  of  being  amusing." 

"  I  gatlier  that  you  did  not  find  them  so." 

The  redoubtable  woman  acknowledged  a  certain  deftness 
in  tlie  touch  by  asking  the  young  man  to  pass  the  claret. 

"  But  surely,"  she  urged  while  he  helped  her  to  it, 
"  3'ou  are  not  insensible  to  the  delicate  tracery  of  her  style, 
the  dey)th  of  her  culture,  the  width  of  her  outlook  ?  " 

"  Whollv,"  said  tlie  young  man. 

"  Can  it  be  a  blind  intolerance  ?  You  have  reasons  of 
course  ?  " 

128 


TACT:    THE    SOVEREIGN    QUALITY 

"  I  hope  I  have  not  developed  the  fatal  habit  of  making 
up  my  mind  without  them." 

"  How  I  long  to  have  the  privilege  of  hearing  what  they 
are!" 

"  I  fear  you  may  not  find  them  entertaining.  I  fear 
they  might  seem  technical." 

"  Caviare  to  the  general  in  other  words.  Alas,  Mr. 
Porter,  that  our  sex  should  alwa^'s  be  handicapped  out 
of  the  game.  I  am  a  mere  woman  without  pretensions  to 
culture  in  any  form,  but  if  you  wish  to  pay  me  the  most 
delicate  compliment  in  your  power,  you  will  afford  me  the 
chance  to  forget  that  I  am  so  limited.  And,  if  I  may  say 
it,  to  neglect  an  opportimity  of  complimenting  a  woman 
on  the  score  of  her  intellect  is  a  little  inhumane.  Flattery 
is  very  precious  in  our  eyes." 

The  young  m.an  wds  aJert  enough  to  see  that  he  was  in 
im.mlnent  danger  of  crossing  swords.  Rut  his  was  a  nature 
that  could  not  shirk  a  contest.  Delia,  on  the  other  side 
of  the  table,  trembled  for  him.  She  had  a  M'holesome 
dread  of  her  mother's  powers  purchased  by  many  a 
cutting  stroke.  Had  she  been  able  to  save  her  friend 
from  his  danger  she  would  have  done  so,  but  tied  by 
her  subordinate  position  she  knew  not  how.  Suddenly, 
however,  her  desire  grew  uncontrollable.  She  must  save 
him  at  any  cost.  She  bent  across  the  table  full  under  the 
astonished  eyes  of  her  mother,  and  said,  "  Please,  please 
do  not  argue  the  point  !  You  and  my  mother  do  not — 
do  not  see  things  with  the  same  eyes." 

Immediately  he  understood  the  chivalrous  solicitude  for 
himself  that  had  nerved  her  to  this  audacity.  While, 
however,  he  was  smiling  his  gratitude  to  the  little  lady, 
her  mother  had  turned  her  cold  with  a  smile  of  her 
own. 

"  1  beg,  Mr.  Porter,  that  you  will  not  humiliate  me  by 
withholding  3'our  criticism  of  Lady  Bosket.  I  beg  you 
to  overlook  my  disabilities.  I  can  assure  you  such  a  con- 
cession will  be  remembered  with  ineffable  gratitude.  And 
if  one  who  has  moved  in  the  world  might  dare  to  dispense 
her  wisdom,  believe  me  a  man  succeeds  in  proportion  to 
the  compliments  he  pays  to  women.  I  never  see  a  field 
marshal  or  a  cabinet  minister  but  I  think,  '  Ah,  my  dear 

129  I 


BROKE   OF    COVENDEN 

friend,  what  adorable  compliments  you  must  have  paid 
us !  '" 

"  Lady  Bosket  and  hei  school,"  said  the  young  man  with 
an  air  of  deprecation  as  became  one  striving  to  forget  the 
maxim,  '  Language  was  given  us  to  conceal  our  thoughts,' 
"  are  trying  to  set  up  a  rule  of  thumb,  to  which  all 
writing  is  expected  to  conform.  As  in  the  day  of  Pope 
it  was  the  heroic  couplet  of  five  feet,  so  in  ours  no  less  is 
demanded  of  a  writer  by  Lady  Bosket  and  her  school  than 
that  he  shall  have  the  conscience  of  a  nonconformist. 
The  ideal  Lady  Bosket  has  before  her  is  to  be  respectable 
in  the  Victorian  sense.  She  has  a  mission  ;  she  is  the 
guardian  of  the  public  decency.  You  ma}'  write  like  an 
angel,  but  says  she,  beware  of  your  moral  tone." 

"  Surely  that  is  a  precept  that  can  never  lose  its  signifi- 
cance." 

"  In  art  it  has  no  significance.     Art  is  non-moral." 

"  Is  not  that  a  little  cryptic  ?  Surely  art  overflows  with 
moral  teaching  ?  " 

"  Only  inasmuch  that  it  is  human  endeavour  in  its 
highest  and  most  disinterested  form.  But  your  true 
craftsman  does  not  preoccupy  himself  with  shaking  his 
fist  in  the  faces  of  the  wicked  ;  neither  does  he  preoccupy 
himself  with  his  own  integrity.  He  does  not  weave  his 
visions  and  his  meditations  into  patterns  that  dazzle  us 
into  a  blindness  of  dogma.  He  has  no  desire  to  become  a 
shibboleth  of  the  meeting  house  or  the  parish  council. 
He  is  neither  better  nor  worse  than  ourselves  ;  he  is  one  of 
us  ;  he  is  our  brother.  He  holds  the  mirror  up  to  nature 
for  no  conscious  advancement  of  our  immortal  souls, 
except  in  so  far  as  the  reflection  in  it  of  truth  and  beauty 
may  react  upon  them.  He  paints  his  Madonna,  or  carves 
his  Mercury,  or  writes  his  epic  with  fasting  and  with 
j)rayer,  but  if  you  are  to  look  for  the  moral  teaching  in 
these  works  do  not  seek  it  in  the  severity  of  their  line,  but 
in  the  austerity  of  the  life  of  him  who  wrought  them." 

"  I  can  say  with  the  deepest  conviction  that  the  life  of 
Lady  Bosket  will  bear  inspection.  It  is  one  of  continued 
sainthness." 

"  One  fears  tlie  loveUness  of  her  private  character  is 
powerless  to  redceir  the  unseemliness  of  her  works." 


TACT:    THE    SOVEREIGN    QUALITY 

"  I  beg  your  pardon." 

"  The  paradox  is  inevitable.  Lady  Bosket,  in  her  rSU 
of  self-elected  guardian  of  the  public  morals,  is  an  offence 
to  the  sanctity  of  the  art  she  pretends  to  serve.  Bad 
art  is  the  only  form  of  immmorality  known  to  aestheticismj 
Lady  Bosket  is  our  old  friend  Mrs.  Grundy,  in  an  edition  de 
luxe,  carefully  revised  and  brought  up  to  date,  with  an 
appendix  of  the  latest  laws  of  literary  decorum  and  deport- 
ment." 

"  You  will  admit,  I  hope,  that  there  should  be  at  least 
some  standard  of  good  form  ?  " 

"  I  cannot  admit  an  arbitrary  one.  It  ought  not  to  be 
compulsory  even  in  England  to  drape  the  legs  of  one's 
piano.  This  Mrs.  Grundy  of  ours,  this  national  fetish,  is 
as  essentially  vicious  a  person  as  any  to  be  found  in  the 
world.  Hers  is  the  doctrine  of  clothes  with  a  vengeance  ; 
God,  nature,  and  art  are  so  obscene  in  themselves  that  not 
for  a  moment  must  they  be  viewed  without  them.  In  her 
visit  to  the  picture  gallery  the  sight  of  a  marble  upon 
which  Michael-Angelo  has  forgotten  to  place  a  pair  of 
trousers  quite  spoils  her  day.  One  cannot  help  feeling 
how  ironical  it  is  that  persons  who  do  nothing  but  abuse 
it  should  exploit  this  sacred  gift  of  vision." 

Mrs.  Broke  had  already  begun  to  recognize  that  she  was 
no  match  for  her  antagonist.  He  did  not  play  the  game 
as  it  was  understood  in  the  drawing  room.  He  did  not 
mince  matters  once  he  began ;  he  was  not  a  picker  of 
phrases.  He  was  a  slogger,  a  swashbuckler,  a  peripatetic 
bravo,  evidently  without  experience  in  the  drawing  room 
style  of  combat. 

Our  redoubtable  lady  was  piqued.  She  was  not  accus- 
tomed to  being  worsted,  at  her  own  table  particularly,  the 
place  of  all  others  where  she  reigned  supreme.  Some 
people  might  have  called  it  courage  on  the  part  of  this 
underbred  young  upstart  to  permit  himself  such  directness 
in  argument,  but  her  name  for  it  was  less  complimentar5^ 
Poor  Delia,  who  had  followed  every  phase  of  the  con- 
troversy with  a  painful  solicitude  for  the  welfare  of  her 
too-intrepid  friend,  now  saw  certain  subtle  evidences, 
unmistakable  none  the  less  to  those  skilled  in  the  signs,  of 
her  mother's  pique.     The  sudden  appearance  of  an  odd 

131 


BROKE   OF   COVENDEN 

sparkle  in  those  cold  ej^es  made  her  tremble  for  the  young 
man,  as  often  enough  it  had  made  her  tremble  for  her  un- 
fortunate sisters  and  her  unfortunate  self. 

"  You  astonish  me,"  said  Mrs.  Broke,  lifting  her  mild 
voice  a  little.  "  Your  criticism  is  terribly  scathing,  but 
at  least  it  has  the  rare  merit  of  candoiur.  Poor  Lady 
Bosket !  " 

"  I  did  not  give  my  opinion  willingly.  You  will  re- 
member I  was  urged.  I  fear  I  do  not  select  if  I  happen 
to  feel  strongly." 

"  Indeed,  no.     You  are  very  fearless." 

"  Foolhardy  would  be  perhaps  the  more  appropriate 
name  at  this  time  of  day.  Only  too  fully  does  one  re- 
cognize a  certain  unfortunate  cast  of  temper." 

"  I  agree,  Mr.  Porter,  that  your  outspokenness  may  not 
be  without  its  inconvenient  side,"  said  Mrs.  Broke,  hoist- 
ing herself  smoothly  on  the  amende  he  had  offered.  "  May 
it  not  at  times  become  a  little  embarrassing  to  poor  Lady 
Bosket  ?" 

"  She  has  not  suffered  at  present  under  my  unfortunate 
controversial  method,  1  am  haj)py  to  say." 

"  After  all  that  is  not  unnatural.  But  I  would  ask, 
does  it  strike  you  as  quite  politic  that  one  should  dissemi- 
nate these  opinions  of  Lady  Bosket  and  her  work  ?  " 

"  Politic  ?     Forgive  me  if  I  appear  dense." 

"  Would  it  not,  do  you  not  think,  be  somewhat  wounding 
to  poor  Lady  Bosket  if  it  came  to  her  knowledge  that  one 
in  whom  she  happens  to  take  a  peculiar  interest  held  such 
heretical  opinions  concerning  her  ?  " 

"  Forgive  me  if  I  venture  to  ask  on  my  own  part  whether 
the  word  '  politic  '  does  not  call  for  a  stronger  qualifica- 
tion ?  " 

"  Perhaps  it  might  not  be  altogether  pohtic  for  you  to 
insist  upon  a  stronger  one." 

"  I  am  prepared  to  take  the  risk." 

To  Delia's  dismay,  the  cold  brilliant  hardness  was  ever 
growing  in  her  mother's  eyes. 

"  Have  you  not  in  a  sense  been  taken  up  by  her  ?  " 

"  Forgive  me  if  I  crave  for  a  little  more  explicitness." 

"  Is  she  not  in  a  sense  your  patron  ;  I  mean,  of  course, 
somewhat  after  the  iashion  that  in  happier  days  persons 

1:^2 


TACT:    THE    SOVEREIGN    QUALITY 

of  a  pre-eminently  fortunate  position  stood  in  that  relation 
to  art  and  those  who  practise  it  ?  " 

The  young  man  laughed  imperturbably.  The  time- 
honoured  feminine  method  of  retaliation  below  the  belt 
did  not  distress  him.  He  saw  that  our  redoubtable  lady 
had  lost  her  temper. 

"  I  confess  I  had  not  thought  of  it,"  he  said  cheerfully. 
"  But  I  think  the  idea  is  not  without  its  whimsicahty." 

He  laughed  again. 

Mrs.  Broke  had  no  particular  reason  to  be  solicitous  for 
the  reputation  of  her  sister-in-law,  but  superb  as  was  the 
control  she  habitually  kept  upon  herself  for  the  moment 
it  was  gone.  She  was  genuinely  angry.  Her  red  face  had 
grown  a  shade  redder  ;  the  expanse  of  her  smile  had  grown 
a  fraction  more  expansive ;  and  the  grim  light  the 
frightened  Delia  had  observed  in  her  eyes  was  now  burning 
more  coldly  and  oddly  than  ever. 

"  I  gather  that  you  do  not  find  the  idea  wholly  devoid 
of  amusement  ?  "  she  said,  following  up  her  mellowest 
accents. 

"  I  will  not  deny  that  it  has  a  flavour,  although  it  may 
suggest  the  Elizabethan." 

"  Have  not  the  Elizabethans  ever  been  the  theme  of 
our  admiration  ?  " 

"  I  grant  it ;  but  would  you  not  say  that  their  methods 
at  this  time  of  day  are  apt  to  seem  a  little  remote  ?  " 

"  Still,  Mr.  Porter,  I  must  admit  that  I  have  heard  of  a 
number  of  even  literary  persons  who  esteem  it  an  honour 
to  have  incurred  the  notice  of  Lady  Bosket." 

"  I  hope  you  will  pardon  my  amusement  if  it  is  at  all 
likely  to  become  offensive.  To  myself  the  idea  seems  so 
new.  It  had  never  occurred  to  me  that  our  few  and  very 
formal  relations  were  in  danger  of  being  construed  in  that 
light." 

"  You  appear  to  repudiate  them." 

"  Not  at  all ;  on  the  contrary  I  am  anxious  that  an 
exaggerated  notion  of  my  status  should  not  get  abroad." 

The  simplicity  of  his  way  of  saying  this  somewhat 
baffled  his  fair  antagonist.  The  demure  assumption  of 
his  mildness  was  in  nowise  behind  her  own.  And  she  was 
intelligent  enough  to  feel  that  his  was  vastly  the  more 

133 


BROKE   OF   COVENDEN 

delicate.  She  was  hitting  below  the  belt,  which  she  knew  ; 
but  it  seemed  she  was  not  to  have  it  all  her  own  way. 
Where  a  fighter  of  the  other  sex  would  have  admired  his 
skill  and  tenacity  in  the  face  of  a  great  disadvantage  and 
a  peculiar,  his  fair  antagonist  deplored  his  effrontery  in 
venturing  to  defend  himself. 

"  I  observe  that  your  amusement  is  unconquerable," 
she  said.  "  You  force  me  to  concede  the  occasion  for  it. 
But  please  allow  me  to  say  that  in  the  first  instance  I  was 
not  conscious  of  having  provided  it." 

"  Nor,  if  you  wall  allow  me  to  say  so,  do  I  think  you  are 
conscious  new.  One  can  see  that  it  might  not  be  apparent 
to  some  ;  to  me  I  confess  it  is  strikingly  so.  Not  to  put 
too  fine  a  point  upon  it,  I  was  not  aware  that  I  was  in  the 
enjoyment  of  the  avowed,  the  authentic  patronage  of 
Lady  Bosket.  It  gives  one  rather  the  same  influential 
status  that  the  legend  *  Appointment  by  Royal  Warrant ' 
he  hangs  over  his  door  does  to  the  royal  grocer.  It  is  a 
novel  feeling,  but  a  happy  one,  doubtless,  when  one  be- 
comes accustomed  to  the  glamour." 

Again  the  young  man's  laugh  was  heard,  but  the  total 
absence  of  mirth  in  it  implied  that  he  had  yet  to  arrive 
at  this  equable  condition  of  mind. 

Mrs.  Broke  was  now  ready  to  dechne  the  contest.  She 
was  growing  tired  ;  and  without  being  willing  to  admit  that 
she  had  been  actually  defeated,  she  did  not  think  she  had 
shone.  She  hastened,  therefore,  to  scramble  back  to  the  safe 
ground  of  the  influence  of  Beowulf  on  the  early  Augustine 
Fathers. 

She  could  not  rid  herself  of  a  dim  feeling  that  for  once, 
with  all  her  stupendous  social  experience,  she  had  been 
led  into  error.  The  tact  upon  which  so  rightly  she  plumed 
herself  had  been  at  fault.  She  was  not  sure  of  the  direction 
in  which  the  error  lay,  or  exactly  how  it  had  been  made, 
but  the  uneasy  consciousness  remained  to  her  that  the 
latter  part  of  the  conversation  had  not  been  quite  a  suc- 
cess. She  was  driven  to  solace  herself  with  the  reflection 
that  at  those  uncomfortable  moments  when  one  rubbed 
shoulders  with  the  members  of  the  lower  orders,  it  was 
incumbent  upon  one  to  remember  that  these  little  clashes 
must  arise.     Tliere  could  be  no  doubt  he  was  a  very  un- 

134 


TACT:    THE   SOVEREIGN    QUALITY 

couth  fellow.  He  was  a  healthy  specimen  probably  of  that 
strange  product  of  our  modern  system  of  universal  educa- 
tion, the  social  democrat.  He  was  a  sort  of  Labour 
leader  in  embryo?  doubtless.  Not  only  was  his  conceit 
insufferable,  but  he  was  totally  lacking  in  refinement. 
He  seemed  to  think  that  everything  he  said  became  him. 
One  would  have  supposed  he  would  have  gained  a  certain 
sort  of  social  nous  at  the  university.  She  hoped  piously 
that  poor  dear  Edmund  would  not  stumble  across  him. 
If  he  did  the  poor  dear  fellow  would  have  a  fit ! 

When  the  young  man  had  taken  his  departure,  the 
ruffled  lady  spent  some  time  in  meditating  on  her  course. 
Should  she  write  and  tell  Emma  or  should  she  not  of  the 
kind  of  person  her  choice  had  proved  to  be  ?  Had 
she  consulted  her  private  feelings  she  would  have  sat 
down  there  and  then,  and  have  given  him  his  conge.  But 
after  all  there  was  Emma  to  be  grappled  with.  Emma 
held  an  eminent  position  in  the  category  of  those  whom 
we  designate  as  "  touchy."  There  was  no  saying  how  she 
might  take  it.  After  the  encomiums  she  had  lavished  on 
the  man,  she  might  make  it  a  personal  matter  if  this  par- 
ticular gift  horse  were  looked  in  the  mouth.  And  they 
could  by  no  means  afford  to  quarrel  with  Emma.  Apart 
from  the  sensation  of  personal  pique,  which  the  redoubtable 
lady  was  too  thoroughly  the  woman  of  affairs  not  to  be  able 
to  swallow,  it  really  did  not  matter  who  instructed  Delia 
in  Latin  and  mathematics.  It  would  have  been  more 
agreeable  for  the  child,  certainly,  could  she  have  had 
one  less  uncouth  to  direct  her  studies,  but  it  was  not  as 
though  he  was  going  to  be  her  model  of  deportment  and 
manners.  Besides,  it  would  do  her  no  harm  to  suffer  a 
little  hardship  ;  would  it  not  be  in  keeping  with  the  Spartan 
t'-adition  on  which  all  her  girls  had  been  brought  up  ? 
And  again,  as  Emma  had  said,  with  surprising  penetra- 
tion, "  With  a  man  of  that  kind  there  cannot  be  danger! " 

Our  redoubtable  lady  having  entered  into  the  matter, 
not  without  a  certain  zest  that  a  knotty  question  will 
excite  in  an  energetic  intelligence,  presently  enlisted  the 
assistance  of  Delia,  who  was  in  a  position  to  throw  addi- 
tional light  on  the  young  man's  heiises. 

"  I  am  afraid,  child,  you  found  your  tutor  something 
135 


BROKE    OF    COVENDEN 

of  a  trial.  Still,  it  is  not  wholly  wise  to  increase  your  pre- 
judice against  him.  For  your  Aunt  Emma's  sake  you 
must  try  to  have  patience ;  although,  to  be  sure,  I  have  a 
great  mind  to  acquaint  her  of  the  terms  in  which  he  refers 
to  her  work,  and  the  manner  in  which  he  regards  her  kind- 
nesses towards  him." 

"  What  kindnesses,  mother  ?  "  Delia's  curiosity  en- 
abled her  to  ask. 

"  I  am  surprised,  child,  that  you  should  ask  the 
question.  You  miist  know  that  when  a  person  in  your 
Aunt  Emma's  station  in  life  confers  her  notice  on  a  person 
in  his,  it  is  a  great  favour.  It  is  wholly  through  her  interest 
that  he  comes  out  here  to  teach  you." 

Delia  shivered.  She  seemed  to  grow  chill  and  a  little 
faint ;  the  blood  ran  out  of  her  face  suddenly. 

"  I  don't  think  he  looks  at  it  in  that  light  at  all,  mother," 
she  found  the  courage  to  say.  As  she  spoke  the  blood  ran 
as  suddenly  back  into  her  face,  and  seemed  to  burn  with 
a  heat  intenser  for  its  banishment. 

"  I  am  afraid  he  does  not.  It  is  what  I  complain  of  in 
him." 

For  the  life  of  her,  Delia  could  not  see  precisely  what  it 
was  that  her  mother  complained  of  in  her  friend.  She 
was  aware,  in  a  vague  fashion,  that  she  was  very  inex- 
perienced, but  look  at  the  matter  in  what  aspect  she 
mie;ht,  she  could  not  tell  wherein  he  had  offended.  It 
might  be  his  frank  criticism  of  the  writings  of  Aunt  Emma. 
Yet  it  could  hardly  have  been  that,  because  her  mother 
had  insisted  that  he  should  make  it ;  and  he  had  spoken 
with  a  conviction  that  was  very  honest.  Surely  she  was 
not  going  to  blame  him  for  his  integrity.  Did  he  not 
mean  every  word  he  said,  and  was  he  not  so  brave  as  to 
utter  just  his  own  private  thoughts  ?  No,  she  was  sure 
there  must  be  some  deeper-seated  reason.  But  whatever 
the  nature  of  his  fault,  she  was  never  so  firmly  convinced 
of  anything  as  that  it  would  be  unfair  to  visit  him  with 
blame.  She  was  sure  he  had  not  consciously  incurred  a 
reproach. 

Prior  to  to-day  she  had  only  been  brought  into  intimate 
relation  with  three  men  in  all  her  young  life  ;  and  they 
were  her  father,  her  brother,  and  her  uncle  Charles      She 

136 


TACT:    THE    SOVEREIGN    QUALITY 

had  been  able  dimly  to  recognize  the  fine  mascuhne 
attributes  in  each  of  these  heroes,  but  the  hours  she  had 
passed  in  the  Hbrary  with  her  tutor  that  morning  had  far 
more  powerfully  affected  her  with  the  significance  of  the 
masculine  character. 

Now  that  they  were  no  long^  face  to  face,  and  she  was 
able  to  look  back  impartially  upon  their  meeting,  an  extra- 
ordinary power  seemed  to  have  resided  in  him.  Without 
making  any  particular  effort,  without  insisting  in  any  way 
upon  his  great  reserve  force,  his  will  had  dominated  hers 
in  the  completest  manner.  He  had  wrung  her  secrets  out 
of  her,  and  he  had  made  her  obey  his  wishes,  when  nothing 
was  firmer  in  her  than  the  determination  not  to  obey  them. 
The  episode  of  the  destruction  of  her  manuscripts  continu^ 
to  bewilder,  to  disconcert  her. 

The  dominion  of  your  men  of  power  may  prove  un- 
fortunate. It  is  well  they  are  not  always  cognisant  of  the 
potency  they  wield  ;  were  it  otherwise  existence  would  be 
in  danger  of  becoming  a  more  tragic  thing.  Nor  is  it 
exclusively  from  among  the  weak  and  the  lowly  they 
would  draw  their  victims  ;  it  too  often  argues  a  subtle 
kinship  between  their  own  masterful  magnetic  force  and 
those  natures  it  is  their  fate  to  overpower.  In  many 
respects  poor  Delia  had  the  callowness  of  mind  and  heart 
of  the  most  unsophisticated  child  of  them  all.  The  accents 
of  the  nursery  were  as  yet  hardly  out  of  her  voice  ;  but  that 
strange  film  floating  above  the  hidden  depths  of  her  ej^es, 
the  heartily  despised  of  her  sisters,  had  a  meaning.  The 
old  eternal  mysteries  lurked  below  the  curtain.  Nebulous 
and  fragile  it  might  be,  tenderly  vague  and  at  present  so 
indefinite  that  only  one  pair  of  eyes  was  cunning  enough 
to  suspect  the  existence  of  it  at  all,  it  was  yet  no  light  and 
vapid  spirit  that  brooded  in  that  abyss.  There  was  there 
a  soul  to  surrender;  a  nature  to  wrench;  a  heart  to  be 
made  to  bleed.  In  a  sense  nothing  could  have  been 
more  inimical  to  her  development,  as  a  member  of  the 
community  in  which  she  made  a  unit,  than  that  at  a 
season  so  susceptible  she  should  be  thrown  into  the  toils 
of  a  nature  so  powerful  that  it  might  crush  her  into  dust 
without  being  conscious  that  it  touched  her. 

Later  in  the  afternoon  her  sisters  returned  from  hunting 
137 


BROKE    OF    COVENDEN 

to  find  Delia  curled  up  in  the  recesses  of  the  cosiest  chair 
of  their  common  room.  A  brisk  fire  was  before  her,  and 
she  was  reading  the  mustiest  old  book  imaginable :  the 
Works  of  Jeremy  Taylor,  D.D.,  volume  iv. 


138 


CHAPTER  XI 
In  the  Temple  of  Diana 

IT  was  their  custom  on  their  return  from  the  field  to 
come  there  in  their  muddy  attire,  and  revive  the 
events  of  the  glorious  day,  while  they  refreshed  their 
weariness  with  weak  tea  and  bread  and  butter  cut  in  very 
thick  slices.  They  were  in  a  fine  state  of  excited  satisfac- 
tion this  afternoon.  The  runs  had  been  so  entirely  delight- 
ful, that  after  some  little  argument,  whereby  they  hoped 
their  temerity  would  grow  less,  they  resolved  to  commemo- 
rate the  occasion  and  make  it  a  festival  by  asking  for 
preserve  for  tea. 

The  resolve  itself  was  easy,  but  it  involved  a  special 
degree  of  hardihood  to  put  it  into  execution.  Had  it  been 
possible  to  prefer  the  request  directly  to  the  cook,  it  would 
not  have  been  at  all  difficult ;  but  it  might  mean  summary 
dismissal  for  that  tender-hearted  functionary  if  she  inclined 
her  ear.  As  cook  had  been  known  to  declare,  it  was  more 
than  her  place  to  send  them  up  so  much  as  a  jug  of  cream 
on  Sundays.  The  matter  was  even  outside  the  jurisdiction 
of  the  housekeeper.  No  ;  demands  of  that  kind  had  to 
be  preferred  to  their  mother  in  her  own  proper  person. 
She  it  was  who  regulated  their  menu  on  a  fixed  principle 
of  the  most  resolute  economy.  And  such  a  trepidation 
had  these  Dianas  whenever  they  confronted  her  that  in 
the  absence  of  volunteers  for  the  heroic  duty  they  resorted 
to  conscription  by  the  ballot-box.  In  other  words  they 
wrote  their  six  names  on  six  small  pieces  of  paper,  rolled 
them  up,  and  shook  them  together  in  an  old  boot.  Joan 
then  drew  out  one  with  great  solemnity. 

It  bore  the  name  of  Delia.     They  were  almost  certain 

139 


BROKE    OF    COVENDEN 

it  would  bear  the  name  of  Delia,  because  it  had  become 
a  proverb  among  them  that  Delia  was  very  unlucky.  Exact 
science  had  been  able  to  establish  the  fact  that  she  had  been 
born  on  a  Friday.  Everything  disagreeable  seemed  to  befall 
her  as  if  by  the  agency  of  an  evil  magic.  Had  they  been 
in  the  least  imaginative,  they  must  have  felt  that  some 
malevolent  fairy  had  presided  at  her  birth.  They  would 
have  asked  no  more  salutary  proof  of  it  than  that  she  should 
be  taken  in  hand  by  Aunt  Emma.  That  was  the  crowning 
instance  of  her  wretched  luck.  Poor  little  kid  !  All  the 
same,  when  she  was  haled  out  of  her  comfortable  chair 
in  front  of  the  fire  and  bidden  to  resign  the  Works  of 
Jeremy  Taylor,  D.D.,  volume  iv.,  to  go  forth  on  her  diplo- 
matic errand,  she  was  instructed  to  remind  her  mother  that 
it  was  precisely  two  months  and  three  days — the  occasion 
was  marked  on  the  calendar  in  sedulous  red  ink — since 
they  had  been  allotted  their  previous  pot  of  preserve, 
and  although  it  had  been  only  a  small  pot  they  had  made 
it  last  nearly  a  week. 

Delia,  however,  was  very  soon  back  again.  Her  inter- 
view with  the  presiding  deity  had  been  brief  and  to  the 
point. 

"  Mother  says  certainly  not." 

Accepting  this  fiat  with  a  readiness  that  went  to  show 
they  had  expected  it,  they  fell  upon  the  ungarnished 
slices  of  thick  bread  and  butter,  and  the  butter  was  not  by 
any  means  in  proportion  to  the  bread,  with  no  absence  of 
resolution.  They  had  had  a  splendid  day.  Four  times 
had  they  found  ;  three  times  had  they  killed,  and  the  other 
fox  had  gone  to  ground.  They  had  run  from  Bobbet's 
Gorse  to  the  Dog  Holes  in  twenty  minutes,  and  Uncle 
Charles  had  said  he  would  defy  the  Quorn  to  do  it  in  less. 
They  had  been  in  the  same  field  as  hounds  most  of  the 
time  ;  all  except  Margaret,  who  was  obliged  to  be  careful 
of  the  Doctor's  off  foreleg,  and  therefore  dared  not  put 
him  at  the  bullfinch  at  the  bottom  of  Coplaw  Hill,  the 
particularly  beastly  one  with  the  very  bad  take-off,  and 
had  therefore  to  go  round  by  the  gate.  But  everybody 
else  had  brought  it  off  all  right,  although  Jane,  as  usual, 
had  picked  the  wrong  place — Jane  blushing  vividly — and 
if  Pat  had  not  been  so  clever,  she  must  have  had  him  down. 

140 


IN    THE    TEMPLE    OF    DIANA 

Uncle  Charles  said  that,  take  it  altogether,  it  was  one  of  the 
best  days  he  had  had  since  he  had  hunted  the  pack  ;  and 
he  had  promised  Joan,  Philippa  and  Harriet  a  brush  apiece, 
although  Hat  might  easily  have  spoilt  everything  when 
she  nearly  let  Whitenose  put  his  foot  on  Madrigal. 

"  I  am  sure  I  did  not,"  said  the  indignant  Harriet. 

"  Oh,  Hat,  how  can  you  ?  "  cried  the  other  four.  "  Why, 
Uncle  Charles  looked  at  you  himself  and  said,  *  Woa  there, 
back  pedal  !  '  " 

"  Oh,  you  mean  then,"  said  Harriet  with  an  air  of  relief 
that  was  very  marked  indeed.  "  That  was  only  because 
I  was  going  out  of  my  turn  through  the  gate.  I  only 
squeezed  in  front  of  that  red-headed  young  farmer  on  the 
rawboned  grey  with  the  long  tail,  and  he  twice  made  a 
noise  when  hounds  were  casting." 

This  explanation  being  deemed  satisfactory  to  the  Court, 
the  narrative  resumed  its  harmonious  flow.  Their  father, 
although  riding  Porlock  up  to  fifteen  stone,  led  the  whole 
field  at  Mounsey's  Brook,  and  covered  himself  with  honour 
by  making  a  successful  cast  when  hounds  were  at  fault  in 
the  Spinney,  Uncle  Charles  being  left  behind  for  the 
moment  in  the  Triangle.  Lord  Croxton  had  been  tossed 
rather  badly  when  his  mare,  the  most  beautiful  chestnut 
they  had  ever  seen,  with  perfect  thoroughbred  shoulders, 
had  refused  a  fence  in  the  last  field  but  one  on  the  left 
going  into  Caisby  from  High  Moreton.  Uncle  Charles 
said  it  would  have  served  the  beggar  right  if  he  had  broken 
his  neck,  because  he  ought  to  have  known  bett<^r  than  to 
put  her  at  it  when  she  was  done,  although  Uncle  Charles 
said  you  could  not  expect  to  find  old  heads  on  young 
shoulders  all  the  same. 

"  It  was  his  second  horse,  too,  so  you  will  see  the  sort 
of  day  it  has  been,"  said  Margaret. 

"  It  was  the  last  field  but  two  coming  into  Caisby," 
mterposed  PhiUppa  at  this  point,  doggedly.  She  had  an 
air  of  reflection  that  showed  she  had  been  thinking  the 
matter  over  carefully. 

"  One,"  sang  the  other  four. 

"Two,"  said  Philippa,  more  doggedly  than  ever.  "It 
is  the  one  with  the  cow  hovel  in  one  corner,  and  the  row 
of  pollard  elms  at  the  top  end  just  as  you  get  in." 

141 


BROKE    OF    COVENDEN 

*'  Flip's  right,"  said  Joan  with  decisive  gravity.  "  What 
a  stupid  mistake  to  make  !  Of  course  it  is  the  second  ; 
the  one  that  had  the  half-bred  two-year-old  in  it  that  Uncle 
Charles  never  liked." 

"  So  it  was,"  the  rest  chimed  in.  "  How  stupid  we 
are  !  And  how  funny  it  is  that  Flip  never  says  anything 
unless  she's  sure." 

The  edge  being  worn  at  last  off  their  own  exploits,  they 
were  able  to  extend  a  little  commiseration  to  Delia.  They 
gave  of  their  sympathy  with  refreshing  frankness. 

"  Poor  old  Del,"  they  said.  "  What  a  shame  to  be  left 
out  of  it  like  this.  You  have  missed  a  glorious  day,  and 
all  because  it  is  a  fad  of  Aunt  Emma's  to  send  that  awful 
young  man  to  teach  you  Greek  and  Latin." 

Delia  blushed  deeply  at  this  reference,  but  they  were  too 
pre-occupied  with  bread  and  butter  to  notice  it. 

"He  is  not  awful,"  said  Delia. 

"  Oh,  Del,"  they  said,  "  how  can  you  ?  We  rather 
admire  you,  of  course,  for  making  the  best  of  your  bad 
luck  ;  it  is  right  to  make  light  of  a  thing  when  you  cannot 
help  it.     But  he  is  awful,  you  know  he  is." 

"  I  don't,"  said  Delia,  "  and  I  am  sure  you  do  not 
either." 

"  That's  just  what  we  do  know,"  they  sang  triumphantly. 
"  We've  seen  him." 

"  He  is  not  awful,"  said  Delia. 

"  Yes,  he  is,  Del,  you  know  he  is  !  You  are  a  brick  to 
stick  up  for  him,  of  course  ;  we'll  own  it  is  rather  nice  of 
you — shows  nice  feeling  and  all  that ;  but  how  you  can 
stick  up  for  a  man  like  that  we  don't  know.  We  are  sure 
we  covild  not." 

"  He  does  not  want  any  sticking  up  for." 

"  No,  we  should  not  say  he  does.  He  is  the  sort  of  man 
who  would  only  be  too  ready  to  stick  up  for  himself." 

"  No,  he  would  not,"  said  DeHa  with  a  fierceness  they 
had  never  suspected  in  her.  "  He  is  very  modest  ;  if 
mother  likes  to  say  he  is  not,  it  is  not  just  of  her.  He  has 
a  right  to  respect  himself.  H-  I  were  as  wise  and  clever 
as  he  is.  T  should  respect  m5'self  too." 

"  \\  hat  has  his  cleverness  got  to  do  with  it,  if  a  man  is 
wlKit  I'llly  calls  a  '  bounder  '  ?  " 

l.}2 


IN    THE    TEMPLE    OF    DIANa 

"  He  is  a  gentleman,"  said  Delia. 

"  Why  doesn't  he  brush  his  hat,  then  ?  "  said  Philippa. 

"  Why  does  he  wear  such  a  silly  collar  ?  "  said  Jane. 

"  Why  does  he  wear  such  a  wretched  old  slovenly  tie  ?  " 
said  Harriet. 

"  Why  are  his  clothes  so  old  and  his  boots  so  ugly  ?  " 
said  Margaret. 

"  Because  he  may  be  as  poor  as  we  are,"  said  Delia 
desperately. 

"  Why  is  he  the  son  of  a  bookseller  ?  "  said  Joan. 

"  Yes,  why  is  he  the  son  of  a  bookseller  ?  "  demanded 
one  and  all  in  breathless  chorus. 

Delia  summoned  every  spark  of  her  courage. 

"  Why  should  he  not  he  ?  "  she  said,  fighting  against 
the  sickness  that  was  stealing  along  her  veins.  "It  is 
not  a  wicked  thing  to  be  the  son  of  a  bookseller  as  far  as 
I  can  see.  He  is  good,  and  he  is  brave,  and  he  is  clever, 
and  he  is  a  gentleman  by  nature.  I  do  not  see  how  a 
man  like  that  can  be  despised.  I  am  sure  that  those  who 
do  despise  him  are  themselves  despicable." 

"  Delia  !  "  they  cried  aghast. 

"  I  do  not  care.     You  drove  me  to  it." 

"  Delia  I  "  they  shouted.  "  What  would  mother  say  if 
she  heard  you  talk  like  this  ?     W^hat  would  father  say  ?  " 

"I  do  not  care,"  said  Delia.  "It  is  as  I  feel ;  I  cannot 
help  my  feelings  ;  it  is  not  my  fault.  Mother  was  very 
rude  to  him  at  luncheon  ;  and  when  he  had  gone  she  spoke 
of  him  cruelly." 

"  Delia,"  they  shouted,  "  what  are  you  saying  ?  " 

"  You  are  just  the  same,"  Deha  went  on  in  a  dreary 
voice  ;  and  just  then  in  a  vague  fashion  her  manner 
recalled  that  of  their  Uncle  Charles  when  he  had  a  glass 
of  whiskey  in  his  hand.  "  You  are  just  as  cruel,  and  I 
know  that  father  will  be  still  more  cruel.  How  did  Aunt 
Emma  speak  of  him  the  other  day  ?  Now  that  I  know 
the  kind  of  man  he  is  I  can  see  how  horrid  it  was  of  her  to 
talk  of  him  like  that." 

"  And  now  that  we  have  seen  the  kind  of  man  he  is," 
said  Joan  in  the  voice  of  their  father,  "  we  can  see  that 
for  once  justice  was  on  Aunt  Emma's  side." 

"  I  shall  hate  you,  Joan,  if  you  talk  of  him  like  that," 
M3 


BROKE    OF   COVENDEN 

said  Delia  wildly ;  she  was  losing  the  hold  she  had  kept 
on  herself  all  through.  "  I  shall  hate  everybody  ;  I  shall 
even  hate  father  if  he  talks  like  that  about  him.  I  shall,  I 
shall  !     It  is  cruel,  it  is  unjust !  " 

She  got  up,  cast  down  her  book,  threw  herself  upon  the 
sofa,  buried  her  head  in  its  dilapidated  cushions,  and  burst 
into  a  flood  of  tears.  Her  sisters  were  amazed.  None 
of  them  were  given  to  manifestations  of  that  kind.  They 
formed  no  part  of  their  Spartan  tenets.  And  the  cause 
of  it  was  as  inexplicable  as  such  a  behaviour  was  unpre- 
cedented. There  was  not  a  word  in  all  they  had  said  they 
did  not  mean,  which  was  not  perfectly  true.  They  could 
not  possibly  have  offended  her.  True,  she  miglit  choose 
to  consider  they  had  done  so.  On  thinking  it  over  they 
could  only  arrive  at  the  conclusion  that  she  suffered  from 
a  sense  of  injury,  which  it  was  impossible  to  wreak  on 
the  person  who  was  responsible  for  it ;  but  now  having 
found  a  pretext  in  an  imagined  grievance,  she  was  able 
by  proxy  to  visit  her  wrongs  on  them. 

1  his  was  the  only  view  of  her  unheard-of  conduct  to 
which  they  could  subscribe.  They  were  really  sorry  for 
her.  Truly  it  was  hard,  poor  little  kid  !  that  she  should 
be  condemned  to  spend  her  mornings  in  that  miserable 
way  when  she  would  so  dearly  love  to  be  out  hunting  like 
themselves  with  their  father  and  their  Uncle  Charles. 
But,  after  all,  things  were  not  so  black  as  they  seemed. 
They  had  had  it  from  their  mother  that  this  horrid  man 
was  only  coming  out  three  times  a  week.  Might  it  not 
be  arranged  that  he  should  come  on  those  days  when  the 
hounds  did  not  meet  ?  They  gave  their  terribly  distressed 
youngest  sister  the  comfort  of  this  suggestion. 

"It  might  even  be  arranged  that  one  of  the  days  should 
be  Sunday,"  suggested  Philippa,  the  weighty  and  the 
practical. 

Strangely  enough,  however,  their  earnest  attempts  at 
consolation  had  no  effect  on  Delia's  passionate  grief. 
Never  in  their  hves  had  they  seen  any  one  weep  so  bitterly. 
From  the  manner  of  her  distress  they  might  have  inflicted 
an  injury  upon  her  that  hurt  her  cruelly,  instead  of  one 
which,  if  it  had  an  existence  at  all,  could  only  be  in  her 
yoimg  imagination.     But  they  were  simple  creatures,  who 

I  1  t 


IN    THE    TEMPLE    OF    DIANA 

were  soon  moved  to  remorse.  After  all,  they  should  have 
been  more  careful.  Some  of  the  things  they  had  said  of 
the  tutor  had  perhaps  been  intended  to  tease  her  a  little  ; 
and  they  ought  not  to  have  been  guilty  of  a  suspicion  of 
that  sort  of  thing,  when  the  poor  little  kid  was  only  too 
likely  to  have  an  accumulation  of  trouble  in  her  heart. 

Joan,  the  eldest,  the  spokeswoman  on  every  public 
occasion  for  them  all,  begged  her  pardon  gravely.  Had 
they  only  known,  they  would  certainly  not  have  breathed 
a  word  against  her  tutor  in  badinage  or  otherwise.  Not 
for  a  moment  had  they  thought  it  likely  that  she  would 
resent  it.  Joan  was  good  enough  to  add  that  she  thought 
it  rather  chivalrous  of  her  to  stick  up  for  him  like  that, 
notwithstanding  what  her  real  private  feelings  must  be  ; 
that  it  was  plucky  of  her,  and  that  she  was  a  brick.  Such 
a  fine  amende  from  Joan,  who  was  ever  foremost  in  snubbing 
her — she  it  was  who  first  propounded  the  brilliant  and 
original  conundrum  :  "  Why  is  Delia  like  a  chair  ? — 
Because  it  is  her  nature  to  be  sat  upon  " — they  felt  was 
a  lordly  compensation  for  her  fancied  wrongs. 

Nothing  they  could  say  or  do,  however,  had  the  power 
to  console  her.  She  still  buried  her  face  in  the  sofa- 
cushions  while  the  sobs  were  shaken  out  of  her.  The 
distress  they  had  innocentl}'  provoked  distressed  them  too. 
But  they  could  find  no  remedy  for  it ;  they  spoke  kind 
words  to  her,  spoke  kind  words  about  her,  and  blamed 
themselves  in  vain.  More  and  more  were  they  puzzled, 
for  they  could  gain  no  clue  to  this  extraordinary  exhibition 
of  her  grief.  And  when  at  last  reluctantly  they  left  her 
still  surrendered  to  her  woe,  and  went  to  doff  their  riding- 
habits  and  to  dress  for  dinner,  their  minds  were  exercised 
dreadfully  over  this  painful  problem.  And  well  they 
might  be,  since  Delia  was  as  greatly  puzzled  to  account 
for  her  own  irrational  behaviour  as  were  her  sisters  them- 
selves. 


U3 


CHAPTER  XII 
Maud  Wayling 

DURING  dinner  that  evening  their  mother  made  an 
annoimcement.  Miss  Wa^'ling  was  coming  to  stay  with 
them  during  the  time  that  Billy  was  home  on  leave.  She 
was  expected  to  arrive  on  the  following  morning,  and  Billy 
was  to  come  from  Windsor  in  the  evening.  That  was  a 
more  generally  cheerful  meal  than  they  had  known  for 
a  long  time.  Everybody  seemed  happy,  with  the  ex- 
ception of  Delia.  She,  it  was  true,  was  pre-occupied  and 
looked  rather  sad,  and  her  eyes  were  red.  But  she  could 
scarcely  be  said  to  be  a  chief  factor  of  their  dinner-table 
intercourse.  Her  unhapjiiness  hardly  counted,  when 
against  it  could  be  set  the  shining  looks  of  their  father. 
To-night  the  weight  of  care  they  had  begun  to  discern 
upon  him  lately  was  no  longer  to  be  seen.  They  had  his 
frank  jovial  laugh  in  their  ears, — to  his  daughters  there  was 
no  music  like  it ;  he  took  a  new  interest  in  the  things 
around  him  ;  he  discussed  the  doings  of  the  day,  compared 
notes  with  them  thereupon,  and  twice  he  made  a  joke. 
Their  mother,  too,  was  wonderfully  smiling  and  serene. 
True,  she  invariably  was,  but  to-night  it  did  seem  as  if  her 
demeanour  was  not  an  effort  of  the  will ;  it  was  as  though 
her  heart  co-operated  with  her  mind  in  the  determination 
to  be  cheerful.  Even  she,  the  most  restrained  and  self- 
controlled  of  women,  seemed  a  little  flushed  by  the  pros- 
pective coming  of  Miss  Wavling. 

The  girls  themselves  were  inclined  to  be  a  little  excited 
by  it.  In  a  vague  way  they  had  come  to  understand 
that  Miss  V.  ayling  was  a  sort  of  fairy  godmother  at  the 
touch  of  whose  magic  wand  the  precarious  fortunes  of 
them  all  might  in  a  sense  be  resuscitated.     It  was  settled 


MAUD    WAYLING 

that  she  was  to  marry  Billy  very  soon  ;  and  somehow  it 
was  expected  of  her  that  she  would  make  their  father  and 
mother  happier,  and  thereby  indirectly  make  them  happier 
too.  All  the  same  they  were  not  sure  they  would  be  able 
to  love  her  just  at  first.  At  present  they  were  disposed 
to  be  a  little  in  awe  of  one  in  whom  such  splendid  super- 
human attributes  were  invested. 

Joan  was  the  only  one  of  them  who  had  seen  her.  That 
was  at  a  dance  in  London  during  the  season  in  which  Joan 
came  out.  There,  looking  from  a  distance  at  the  superb 
Miss  Wayling,  she  appeared  to  be  dazzling  in  her  beauty, 
but  it  was  of  a  cold  proud  kind,  Joan  thought,  and  she 
seemed  to  hold  herself  aloof.  But  all  present  considered 
she  was  easily  the  most  beautiful  woman  in  the  room. 
"  Miss  Wayling  makes  everybody  else  look  second-rate," 
she  had  overheard  one  old  woman  saying.  All  the  men 
seemed  to  think  so  too,  for  wherever  she  went  they  followed. 
A  throng  of  them  were  constantly  coming  up  to  ask  to  be 
allowed  to  dance  with  her,  or  to  sit  out  with  her,  or  to 
get  an  ice  for  her,  or  to  take  her  to  supper — men  of  all 
ages,  ranging  from  little  Mr.  Tommy  De  Lacey-Smith, 
the  wisest  of  subalterns  with  nicely  brushed  hair, 
to  Lord  Saint  Ives,  the  patient  young  man  with  the 
weary  expression  ;  men  of  every  size  and  hue,  of  every 
grade  of  the  peerage,  with  a  goodly  sprinkling  of  bald,  and 
in  many  cases  obese,  but  singularly  upright  and  well 
preserved  majors  and  colonels  on  retired  pay.  And  it 
was  a  strange  fact  that  perhaps  the  only  man  in  the  room 
on  whom  this  magnetic  influence  appeared  to  be  exerted 
in  vain  was  Billy  himself.  He  scarcely  went  near  her 
all  night ;  and  he  confided  to  Joan  on  one  occasion  :  "  I 
see  Maud's  en  fete  again  as  usual.  I  can't  understand  what 
all  these  chaps  see  in  her.  I  suppose  she  is  good-looking  in 
her  way  ;  but  it  is  not  my  wa}^  anyhow.  Too  stand-off 
is  our  Miss  Maud."  Joan  had  remembered  that  speech 
word  for  word,  because  she  had  an  excellent  memory. 
And  was  it  not  strange  that  things  should  now  have  come 
round  hke  that  after  Billy  had  spoken  of  her  so  cavalierly  ? 

Considering  all  things,  our  six  critical  ladies  began  with 
a  prejudice  against  Miss  Wayling.  No  matter  how  pleased 
their  father  and  mother  might  be  at  the  prospect  of  her 

147 


BROKE   OF   COVENDEN 

coming — and  it  was  delightful  to  see  them  both  for  once 
so  unaffectedly  happy — no  matter  what  glowing  accounts 
they  gave  of  her  loveliness  of  mind,  of  person,  of  disposition, 
they  felt  instinctively  that  they  were  not  going  to  like 
her  just  at  first.  Try  as  they  might — and  to  do  them 
justice,  they  tried  very  hard  indeed,  for  the  sake  of  their 
parents  and  their  brother — they  found  it  impossible  to 
eradicate  the  unfavourable  impression  she  had  alread)' 
made  upon  Joan,  and  through  Joan  upon  them  all.  Then 
again  she  had  the  entire  approval  of  Aunt  Emma.  No  more 
damning  fact  could  have  been  urged  against  her.  It  was 
enough  in  itself  in  their  eyes  to  condemn  an  angel  from 
heaven. 

The  next  morning,  about  twelve  o'clock,  dear  old 
Reynolds  the  coachman — dear  old  Reynolds,  whose  face 
was  like  a  pudding,  just  as  dear  old  Person's  was  like  a 
frog's  ! — brought  the  hideous  fat  ramshackle  old  omnibus 
up  to  the  front  door  in  his  most  stately  manner.  He  had 
on  his  best  blue  livery,  carefully  preserved  through  many 
summers  and  winters,  with  the  silver  buttons  on  it  shining 
in  the  February  sun  like  veritable  Koh-i-noors  ;  and  the 
old  cockade  to  his  hat,  perfectly  solemn  and  majestic  it 
was  so  upright  and  full  of  self-esteem.  Wilkins  the  foot- 
man, who  shared  the  box,  was  a  worthy  companion  for 
him,  so  completely  did  he  appear  to  be  possessed  by  a  sense 
of  the  occasion.  The  splendid  high-bred  airs  they  wore 
so  easily,  without  seeming  for  a  moment  to  be  aware  that 
they  had  them  on,  had  been  the  envy  for  at  least  two 
generations  of  the  servants  of  all  the  other  aristocratic 
families  of  the  county.  The  mien  of  these  two  elderly 
custodians  of  the  dignity  of  the  house  of  Broke  was 
perfection  if  anything  human  ever  was.  It  was  to  the 
manner  born.  If  aught  could  have  embellished  the 
wretched  old  vehicle  of  which  they  had  the  charge  surely 
their  demeanour  would  have  done  it.  Weak  the  flesh  of 
this  ancient  family  might  be,  but  the  spirit  was  still  in- 
ordinately willing.  Elderly,  gout-ridden  Wilkins  per- 
formed something  of  the  nature  of  an  acrobatic  feat  by 
the  agility  with  which  he  got  down  from  the  box-seat  to 
the  door  of  the  omnibus. 

Our  critical  ladies  were  the  witnesses  of  these  proceedings 
148 


MAUD    WAYLING 

from  the  window  of  their  common-room,  which  by  a  signal 
good  fortune  overlooked  them.  Six  slender  bodies  were 
wedged  before  the  casement  like  so  many  puppies  peeping 
out  of  the  door  of  a  kennel.  They  were  too  excited  to 
speak,  but  gazed  intensely.  There  were  six  pairs  of  eager 
feminine  eyes  for  everything.  Piles  of  luggage  were  on 
the  roof  of  the  'bus ;  great  black  dress-baskets ;  and 
most  alluring-looking  cases  made  of  leather  of  every 
conceivable  shape  and  size.  Such  a  display  of  personal 
belongings  struck  the  first  note  of  awe.  There  seemed  to 
be  two  occupants  of  the  'bus.  The  one  that  first  emerged 
from  it  was  not  at  all  distinguished  in  appearance  ;  the 
sight  of  her  filled  them  with  a  keen  sense  of  disappointment. 
Of  course  ;  how  stupid  !  it  was  her  maid.  They  ought  to 
have  known  that  such  a  princess  of  a  creature  could  not 
possibly  come  without  her  maid. 

The  next  moment  they  obtained  a  glimpse  of  some  very 
remarkable  feathers  stuck  in  a  very  remarkable  hat.  They 
were  then  privileged  to  see  a  long  travelling-cloak,  which 
was  lined  and  trimmed  with  expensive-looking  fur.  They 
could  see  nothing  of  the  person  in  it,  except  that  she  was 
exceptionally  tall,  and  somewhat  inclined  to  be  pale. 
She  carried  her  head  in  the  air,  loftily  they  thought,  quite 
as  you  would  expect  a  veritable  princess  to  carry  it.  Her 
carriage  and  manner  of  walking  were  splendid  also.  They 
could  only  see  the  back  of  her  cloak  to  be  sure,  but  they 
felt  they  had  never  observed  motions  quite  so  graceful 
and  beautiful  before. 

It  thrilled  them  to  see  their  mother,  least  demonstrative 
of  women,  come  down  the  steps  to  greet  the  august  visitor, 
and  kiss  her  affectionately  on  both  cheeks.  Their  mother 
looked  radiant,  and  then  as  Miss  Wayling  gathered  her  skirts 
and  cloak  in  her  hand  as  she  made  to  enter  the  house — for 
it  had  been  raining  recently  and  the  gravel  was  wet — they 
saw  she  had  real  lace  on  her  petticoats  ! 

In  the  hall  there  seemed  to  be  a  commotion  of  welcome. 
Their  mother's  high  tones  mingled  with  the  sounds  of 
the  unlading  and  entry  of  the  numerous  boxes.  And 
through  the  open  door  of  their  own  roomi  they  could  hear 
the  deeper  tones  of  their  father  too.  Within  the  next 
minute  he  was  there  to  summon  them. 

149 


BROKE    OF   COVENDEN 

"  Come  along,  girls,"  he  said,  entering  their  domain. 
"  No  hanging  back ;  come  and  give  Miss  Wayling  a 
welcome." 

He  ushered  the  six  of  them  into  the  hall  proudly  and 
gravely.  Whenever  he  presented  them  to  a  stranger  he 
could  never  dissemble  the  pride  of  possession  they  provoked 
in  him.  It  was  unspoken  ;  but  it  was  always  so  unmis- 
takable in  his  manner  that  people  were  sometimes  apt  to 
be  amused  by  it.  If  they  had  been  six  of  the  greatest 
beauties,  his  sense  of  ownership  could  not  have  been  keener. 

Joan  was  first  presented  to  Miss  Wayling,  and  then 
Philippa,  and  then  the  others  in  the  order  of  their  first 
appearance  in  the  world.  Precedence  was  a  point  on  which 
they  were  very  nice.  It  would  have  been  unpardonable 
had  one  of  them  ventured  to  stand  forward  out  of  the  turn 
ordained  by  the  date  of  her  birth.  Miss  Wayling  and  our 
six  ladies  of  the  house  of  Broke  eyed  one  another  and  shook 
hands  gravely.  In  a  moment  Billy's  sisters  had  all  agreed 
that  never  had  they  seen  any  one  quite  so  beautiful  as 
Miss  Wayling.  And  in  the  same  instant  of  time  they  had 
all  learned  to  be  a  little  afraid  of  her. 

There  is  an  air  of  reticence,  of  mystery,  about  great 
beauty,  as  though  the  possessor  of  it  dwells  on  a  plane 
remote  from  the  common  earth,  and  inhales  with  her 
divinely  sensitive  nostrils  an  ether  rarer  and  purer  than 
our  own.  No  sooner  had  she  turned  her  great  grey  eyes 
on  her  new  friends  with  a  steady  penetrating  gaze,  which 
in  another  might  have  amounted  to  no  more  than  a  certain 
candour  of  contemplation,  than  they  shrank  a  Uttle  from 
them,  and  felt  themselves  to  be  justified  already  of  their 
prepossession. 

When  presently  they  sat  down  together  at  the  luncheon- 
table,  and  Miss  Wayling  had  removed  her  travelling-cloak, 
they  recognized  with  the  perfect  candour  of  their  honest 
characters  that  her  loveliness  was  even  greater  than  they 
had  suspected  it  to  be  at  first.  She  was  built  as  nobly  as 
a  goddess  ;  divinely  tall  of  person,  her  chest  and  shoulders 
had  the  magnificent  amplitude  of  some  Grecian  deity  ; 
her  shape  was  a  miracle  of  curve  ;  the  poise  of  her  head 
was  splendid  and  patrician  ;  her  complexion  shone  with 
a  pallid  brilliancy  which  gave  her  the  cold  marble  look  of 

150 


MAUD   WAYLING 

a  piece  of  sculpture  that  their  Aunt  Emma  had  insisted 
oil ;  and  her  wonderful  grey  eyes  were  like  immeasurable 
lakes  brooding  in  the  heart  of  a  dark  forest  haunted  with 
mystery. 

The  resplendent  creature  had  not  much  to  saJ^  Their 
mother  indicated  many  topics  of  conversation  with  her 
usual  unflagging  tact  of  intercourse.  But  beyond  admitting 
that  it  had  turned  out  a  nice  day  after  all,  although  it  was 
raining  when  she  left  London,  and  that  she  was  glad  Billy 
was  to  arrive  that  evening  in  time  for  dinner,  she  uttered 
scarcely  a  word.  No  subject  seemed  to  interest  her  very 
much,  and  before  luncheon  was  over  she  wore  a  look 
which  they  took  to  mean  that  she  was  being  bored  a  little 
by  the  proceedings.  It  was  with  peculiar  relief  that  they 
watched  her  accompany  their  mother  to  the  drav»dng- 
room.  Her  way  of  doing  it  was  really  the  poetry  of  motion, 
and  the  lofty  manner  in  which  she  carried  that  perfectly 
exquisite  head  struck  them  as  one  of  the  most  dignified 
and  patrician  things  in  human  nature. 

Not  one  of  them  had  addressed  a  word  to  this  regal 
creature.  They  felt  it  might  be  construed  into  an  act  of 
presumption  ;  the  queen  must  first  speak  to  humbler 
persons  before  etiquette  permits  them  to  speak  to  her. 
For  precisely  the  same  reason  they  had  carefully  refrained 
from  anything  that  could  be  interpreted  as  overtures  or 
advances.  It  might  be  taken  as  an  act  of  forvs'ardness  or 
impertinence  ;  whatever  they  did  they  must  guard  against 
the  risk  of  a  snub  ;  never  before  in  their  lives  had  they 
found  themselves  to  be  so  sensitive.  That  cold,  immaculate, 
exquisite  face  would  have  made  any  one  sensitive.  They 
felt  that  if  in  any  way,  however  slight,  she  were  to  reject" 
or  fail  to  reciprocate  the  least  of  their  attempts  at  friendli- 
ness, they  would  not  be  able  to  recover  of  the  humiliation 
it  would  cause.  Let  her  only  make  one  small  show  of 
indifference  towards  them,  let  her  only  give  herself  the 
faintest  suspicion  of  an  air  in  her  most  perfunctory  dealings 
with  them,  and  they  felt  they  would  be  obliged  to  dislike 
her  at  once. 

Assembled  in  their  den  that  afternoon,  Delia  astonished 
her  five  sisters  immensely  by  bursting  into  a  rhapsody  on 
the  subject  of  her  looks. 

151 


BROKE   OF   COVENDEN 

"  She  is  like  a  beautiful  picture,"  said  their  youngest 
sister  in  a  hushed  voice.  "  I  think  I  should  have  to  break 
into  tears  if  I  looked  very  long  at  her  face.  I  did  not  know 
that  there  were  any  real  live  women  of  flesh  and  blood 
who  are  as  beautiful  as  that.  I  have  often  wondered 
why  great  poets  fell  in  love  with  women,  but  I  think  I 
know  now.  She  is  just  like  some  beautiful  picture  that 
has  come  out  of  its  canvas  and  learned  how  to  breathe. 
But  the  colours  in  her  face  and  hair  and  the  lights  in  the 
curves  of  her  neck  make  you  feel  that  the  artist  was 
divine  who  painted  her.  Oh,  how  beautiful,  how  very 
beautiful  she  is  !  " 

Tacitly,  they  all  agreed  with  Delia.  She  was  almost  too 
beautiful ;  and  her  clothes  were  very  beautiful  too.  No 
wonder  that  the  world  vied  with  itself  in  flattering  and 
courting  her.  But  they  did  wonder  that  one  so  supremely 
fortunate  in  her  circumstances  was  not  more  gay.  You 
would  have  thought  that  such  a  favourite  of  nature  would 
be  always  laughing  and  singing  for  very  joy  and  lightness 
of  heart  ;  but  no,  she  seemed  not  happy  at  all,  and  barely 
content  with  her  lot.  Not  once  had  they  seen  her  smile, 
whilst  she  did  not  seem  to  extend  an  interest  to  anything. 

A  little  later  in  the  afternoon  Uncle  Charles  and  Aunt 
Emma  called  and  took  a  cup  of  tea.  It  was  highly  unusual 
that  they  should  arrive  together,  but  their  common  interest 
in  the  momentous  event  was  doubtless  the  reason.  There 
could  be  no  more  em.phatic  sign  of  its  sif^nificance  than  that 
the  lion  and  the  domestic  lamb  should  be  lying  down  to- 
gether. Their  Ur.cle  Charles  generalh'  went  to  other  places 
on  compulsion,  but  he  came  over  nearly  every  dav  from 
Hipsley,  when  he  was  at  home,  to  have  a  few  words  with 
their  father  and  mother,  and  to  see  his  nieces.  He  said 
they  were  such  plain,  sensible  people  that  they  suited  him, 
although,  to  be  sure,  he  said  their  father's  whisky  was  the 
worst  he  had  ever  tasted  in  his  life,  and  that  his  soda  water 
was  worthy  of  it.  He  could  unfold  his  sorrows  to  them, 
however,  and  be  quite  sure  of  their  sympathy,  even  if  it 
was  not  expressed.  Besides,  he  took  an  interest  in  thfun 
for  themselves,  the  more  particularly  now  that  their 
affairs  were  reaching  such  an  acute  stage.  Uncle  Charles 
came  willingly  to  "  see  the  filly." 

Ij2 


MAUD    WAYLING 

Aunt  Emma  was  in  great  feather.  She  was  extraor- 
dinarily kind  and  gracious  to  Miss  Wayling,  and  it  was 
wonderful  how  kind  and  gracious  she  could  be  vvhen  she 
chose  ;  stared  at  her  very  hard  indeed ;  made  flattering 
comments  upon  and  about  her;  and  all  the  time  she 
talked  with  her  voice  at  its  highest  pitch  about  books  and 
travel  and  London  Society ;  did  dear  Maud  know  this 
person  and  that,  and  had  she  heard  about  so-and-so  ? — all 
with  a  condescending  familiarity  that  they  had  never 
observed  in  that  paragon  of  austerity  before.  She  was 
even  kind  enough  to  say  that  when  dear  Maud  became 
bored  to  distraction  in  her  present  environment,  a  contin- 
gency that  was  inevitable  and  a  work  of  time  only,  she 
must  come  over  to  Hipsley  and  spend  a  day  or  two  with 
her. 

"  I  pity  you,  my  dear  Maud,"  said  the  kind  lady.  "  My 
nieces  are  six  of  the  dullest  and  most  unprepossessing 
creatures  in  England.  No  intellect,  my  dear,  no  intellect  ! 
They  are  horsey,  and  I  daresay,  my  dear,  you  have 
noticed  in  a  woman  that  the  term  '  horsey '  is  a  polite 
euphemism  for  the  commonplace.  No  wonder  their 
unfortunate  mother  has  found  such  insuperable  difficulties 
in  procuring  husbands  for  them.  They  cannot  talk  about 
anything  except  stables  and  kennels,  and  they  cannot  do 
anything  but  sit  in  a  saddle  and  walk  puppies.  I  would 
not  advise  you  to  talk  to  them  much,  my  dear  Maud  ; 
they  will  give  you  a  distaste  for  your  sex,  I  am  sure.  But, 
of  course,  I  had  forgotten  that  my  nephew  is  coming  this 
evening.  His  presence  should  make  amends  for  theirs, 
although  I  must  confess  to  my  mind  he,  too,  is  a  very 
commonplace  young  man." 

When  Aunt  Emma  made  this  kindly  reference  to  their 
brother,  Maud  Wayling  betrayed  an  interest  in  the  pro- 
ceedings almost  for  the  first  time.  She  opened  her  eyes 
at  Aunt  Emma,  and  a  faint  tinge  of  colour  mottled  the 
pallor  of  her  cheeks. 

Their  brother  was  expected  to  arrive  at  Cuttisham  by 
the  seven  o'clock  train.  About  the  hour  of  six  a  telegram 
was  dehvered  to  their  mother  with  the  information  in  it 
that  he  could  not  come  that  night  as  he  was  unavoidably 
detained.     Maud  Wayling  was  then  observed  to  flush  for 

153 


BROKE   OF    COVENDEN 

the  second  time,  perhaps  a  httle  more  palpably  than  the 
first.     She  asked  permission  to  read  the  telegram  herself. 

"  Why,"  she  said,  "  it  was  handed  in  in  Piccadilly.  He 
is  not  detained  at  Windsor  then." 

The  flush  deepened. 

Dinner  was  a  very  dull  affair.  A  reaction  from  his  late 
good  spirits  seemed  to  have  come  upon  their  father,  and 
even  their  mother  had  not  her  former  gaiety.  Maud 
Wayling  scarcely  spoke  a  word.  It  was  a  relief  to  the  girls 
when  the  rather  miserable  function  was  at  an  end.  They 
had  looked  forward  to  that  evening's  meal  with  feelings 
so  different.  It  was  to  have  been  hallowed  by  the  presence 
of  the  joyous  brother  whom  they  loved  so  well.  They 
could  have  wept  for  disappointment ;  the  weary  entertain- 
ment fell  the  flatter  for  anticipations  that  were  unfulfilled. 
For  once  even  their  appetites  seemed  to  feel  it,  and  did 
not  crave  for  a  second  helping  of  their  favourite  cabinet 
pudding.  And  more  than  ever  were  they  convinced  that 
the}'  did  not  like  Maud  Wayling.  Her  silence  made  them 
uncomfortable  and  apt  to  be  self-conscious  ;  they  thought 
she  held  them  aloof ;  hers  seemed  a  proud  and  self-con- 
tained sort  of  nature. 

The  next  morning  hounds  met  as  usual.  Courtesy 
required  that  they  should  ask  Miss  Wayling  if  she  hunted, 
and  as  she  had  brought  no  horses  of  her  own  they  must 
be  prepared  to  mount  her  with  their  own  scanty  stable. 
They  fervently  hoped  that  she  did  not  hunt,  not  for  that 
rather  sordid  reason  alone,  but  because  they  would  have  to 
look  after  her,  and  pilot  her  across  a  strange  country.  It 
was  with  relief  that  they  heard  her  make  the  statement 
that  she  did  not  care  for  hunting.  They  quite  expected 
she  would  choose  not  to  go  with  them,  but  it  was  comforting 
to  have  the  official  confirmation  of  that  prophecy. 

Billy  did  not  come  that  day,  nor  the  day  after,  nor  yet 
for  many  days.  His  absence  was  inexpHcable.  His  mother 
wrote  to  him  twice  ;  once  to  his  quarters  at  Windsor,  and  • 
once  to  his  club  in  London.  She  did  not  receive  an  answer 
to  either  of  her  letters.  It  was  the  strangest  thing  !  No 
one  could  conceive  what  had  happened  to  him.  A  fortnight 
had  passed  since  his  leave  had  begun  ;  he  knew  that  Miss 
Wa}]ing  was  staying  at  Covenden,  and  he  had  certainly 

154 


MAUD    WAYLING 

made  his  mother  a  promise  that  he  would  pay  one  of  his 
infrequent  visits  to  his  home  to  meet  her.  His  absence 
was  a  mystery. 

Maud  Wayling  made  no  comment  on  the  matter,  one 
way  or  another,  but  to  the  relentless  feminine  observers 
by  whom  she  was  surrounded  it  was  plain  that  she  felt 
it  in  her  impercipient  fashion.  She  spoke  less  and  less  if 
that  were  possible  ;  but  the  flush  they  had  managed  once 
or  twice  to  surprise  in  her  face  seemed  lo  grow  deeper 
every  time  it  appeared,  and  these  last  few  days  it  had 
appeared  so  often  that  they  thought  it  was  becoming 
permanent. 

In  the  meantime  public  attention  had  been  called  to 
the  affair.  A  paragraph  had  been  circulated  in  the  London 
society  newspapers,  the  Cuttisham  Advertiser  and  the 
Parkshire  Reporter,  in  which  a  rumour  was  contained  that 
Miss  Wayling,  heiress  and  only  child  of  the  late  Charles 
Wayling,  Esq.,  of  Calow,  co.  Salop,  was  to  marry  Mr. 
W.  E.  Broke,  of  the  Royal  Horse  Guards.  The  rumour 
was  the  more  interesting,  said  these  newspapers,  because 
Miss  Wayling  was  reputed  to  be  one  of  the  wealthiest 
and  was  incontestably  one  of  the  most  beautiful  heiresses 
of  many  seasons,  while  Mr.  Broke  belonged  to  one  of  the 
first  county  families  in  England,  and  was  a  well  known 
and  highly  popular  figure  in  society. 

The  young  man's  absence  began  to  be  talked  about  by 
those  who  had  grown  aware  of  it.  Lady  Bosket  had 
remarked  upon  it  to  her  neighbours  and  acquaintances  ; 
they  in  turn  diligently  remarked  upon  it  to  theirs.  Lord 
Bosket  commented  on  it  freely.  He  was  such  a  simple  man, 
so  forthright  and  ingenuous,  that  not  for  an  instant  did 
it  occur  to  him  that  his  frankness  might  be  doing  harm. 
He  felt  that  the  case  of  Maud  Wayling  and  his  nephew 
was  so  precise  a  parallel  of  a  certain  one  upon  which  he 
was  never  weary  of  expatiating,  that  to  deny  himself  the 
pleasure  of  pointing  the  moral  of  it  was  too  much  to  ask 
of  the  victim  of  that  eternal  tragedy. 

"  I  tell  you  what  it  is,"  he  said  with  his  irresolute  fingers 
trembling  on  the  buttonhole  of  anybody  and  everybody, 
"  the  colt's  shyin'.  Knows  a  thing  or  two,  what  ?  Educa- 
tion's  spread   a  bit  since  my  time.     These  young  fellers 

155 


BROKE    OF    COVENDEN 

know  nearly  as  much  as  their  grandmothers  now ;  com« 
pulsory  School  Boards  and  so  on  are  doin'  a  lot.  And  if  I 
had  known  as  much  twenty  years  ago  as  does  that  boy, 
do  you  think  I  would  not  ha'  shied  too  ?  I'd  ha'  played 
old  Harry  before  they'd  ha'  popped  the  halter  on  me. 
There's  no  gettin'  your  head  once  they've  got  that  on. 
But  bless  you,  I  was  ignorant  then  ;  I  went  to  church  as 
dumb  as  a  dog  because  I  knew  no  better.  But  Master 
William  does,  I  give  you  my  word.  He  knows  better. 
These  young  'uns  are  so  fly  nowadays,  God  bless  you  !  that 
they  won't  even  put  their  monickers  to  a  money-lender's 
bill  without  they've  got  their  lawyers  with  'em.  But  I'm 
not  goin'  to  blame  the  feller.  I  should  ha'  done  the  same 
if  at  his  age  I'd  known  as  much." 

The  matter  was  becoming  awkward  indeed.  Miss  Way- 
ling  still  preserved  her  unfailing  reticence  even  to  Mrs. 
Broke,  but  the  persons  around  her  were  inclined  to  suspect 
that  she  felt  it  painfully.  But  even  the  Misses  Broke, 
those  inexorable  critics,  were  fain  to  admit  that  she  bore 
it  well.  Their  dignity  almost  allowed  them  to  be  sorry  for 
her  privately,  She  had  been  a  fortnight  in  their  house 
already,  but  there  was  no  likelihood  of  their  becoming  her 
friends.  She  could  not  be  said  to  enjoy  a  whit  more  of 
their  confidence  or  companionship  than  on  the  day  of 
her  arrival.  All  the  same  these  aloof  young  people  could 
discern  that  in  her  cold  proud  way  she  thought  a  lot  of 
their  brother.  That  fact,  at  least,  had  to  be  counted  to 
her  for  righteousness.  And  they  even  went  the  length, 
such  an  instinct  they  had  for  justice,  of  half-admitting 
that  if  by  any  chance  it  was  possible  for  that  hero  not  to 
act  with  absolute  credit  to  himself,  here  was  the  occasion 
on  which  he  was  engaged  in  so  doing.  Those  were  sore 
days  for  their  mother,  but  they  could  not  refrain  from 
admiring  the  resolution  that  was  hers.  To  everybody  she 
wore  tlic  same  indomitable  smiling  exterior.  Their  father, 
jioor  man,  had  no  such  arts  as  these  for  his  protection. 
He  was  angry  and  astonished  and  hurt ;  and  anybody 
who  wished  to  know  how  much  so  had  only  to  look  into 
his  face  to  see  for  themselves. 

At  last,  when  his  friends  had  been  made  so  thoroughly 
uriconifortable  that  his  father  had  vowed  that  it  must  be 

156 


MAUD    WAYLING 

enduied  no  more,  and  declared  his  intention  of  running  up 
to  London  to  rout  the  fellow  out  of  his  club — his  father 
was  certain  that  he  was  to  be  found  in  Piccadilly  playing 
bridge — he  had  the  grace  to  write  a  few  bald  lines  to  his 
mother.  They  conveyed  the  information  that  he  proposed 
to  arrive  at  Covenden  on  the  evening  of  the  following  day. 
He  would  reach  Cuttisham  by  the  seven  o'clock  train,  the 
one  he  had  been  prevented  from  coming  by  before  ;  but 
he  regretted  that  he  would  not  be  able  to  solace  them 
with  his  company  for  more  than  a  night  and  a  day,  for  by 
now  he  had  made  such  a  hole  in  his  leave  that  it  did  not 
extend  beyond  that  rather  limited  period. 

His  father  fulminated  when  this  letter  was  shown  to 
him,  and  protested  that  he  would  have  it  out  with  the 
fellow.  What  did  he  mean  by  it  ?  Behaviour  like  that 
was  monstrous,  and  would  no  more  have  been  tolerated 
by  his  parents  in  him  than  he  would  have  thought  of  inflict- 
ing it  upon  them.  Then  it  was  in  the  face  of  this  so  very 
unusual  outburst  of  their  father's  that  Maud  Wayling  first 
showed  a  disposition  to  confess  an  interest  in  the  dehcate 
subject. 

"It  may  not  be  his  fault,"  she  said.  "  I  am  convinced 
there  is  a  good  reason  for  his  absence." 

"  Why  did  he  not  write  before  then  ?  "  said  their  father, 
unpacified. 

"  I  am  sure  there  must  be  some  excellent  reason,"  quietly 
persisted  Maud  Wayling. 

"  I  agree  with  you,  my  dear  Maud,"  said  their  mother. 
"  I  am  sure  you  are  right ;  and,  Edmund,  I  hope  you  will 
not  mention  the  subject  to  him  until  he  has  taken  the 
opportunity  of  giving  me  an  explanation  privately." 

As  usual,  their  father  bowed  to  the  ruling  of  their  mother. 
It  was  his  invariable  habit  in  all  matters  of  a  pohtical  kind. 

That  was  the  first  moment  in  which  Maud  Wayling 
betrayed  any  signs  whatever  of  rising  in  the  esteem  of  her 
critics.  They  were  not  sure  that  it  was  not  rather  nice 
of  her  to  stick  up  for  their  brother  publicly  when  he  was 
out  of  favour.  And  on  the  face  of  it  they  could  not  refrain 
from  thinking,  terribly  painful  as  it  was,  that  he  might  not 
deserve  to  be  stuck  up  for,  and  that  it  was  actually  generous 
of  her  to  defend  him.     At  any  rate,  they  had  not  expected 

157 


BROKE    OF    COVENDEN 

her  to  do  it.  So  susceptible  were  they  to  anything  that 
could  be  construed  into  a  display  of  what  they  regarded  as 
good  sportsmanship,  that  for  the  moment  they  felt  inclined 
to  inquire  a  little  more  closely  into  the  rather  harsh 
judgment  they  had  allowed  themselves  to  form  of  her. 
After  all,  if  at  a  time  when  she  must  be  hurt  by  Billy's 
behaviour  she  could  stick  up  for  him,  whether  he  deserved 
to  be  stuck  up  for  or  not,  she  might  have  her  own  private 
code  of  the  rules  of  the  game  as  well  as  they  had.  It  was 
not  outside  the  bounds  of  possibility  that  in  her  own  peculiar 
way  she  might  be  capable  of  being  a  bit  of  a  brick,  just  like 
anybody  else. 

The  following  day,  upon  which  this  prince  among  man- 
kind was  to  arrive  at  last,  actually  and  irrevocably,  and 
in  his  own  radiant  person,  could  not  help  dedicating  itself 
to  a  little  flutter  and  excitement.  That  was  a  superbly 
regulated  household,  ordered  with  vigilant  care  and  a  fine 
tradition  of  propriety  in  all  things,  but  even  it  could  not 
remain  impervious  to  the  coming  of  the  young  prince. 
There  must  always  be  the  red  carpet  for  royalty  ;  and 
although  you  need  not  take  the  trouble  to  walk  as  far  as 
the  haberdasher's  to  purchase  a  few  yards  of  it,  because 
there  are  rolls  upon  rolls  in  the  garret  which  were  used  in 
old  days  for  your  old  friend  Queen  Anne,  still  you  cannot 
fail  to  hear  the  sounds  of  the  hammers  at  the  moment 
they  are  laying  it  down  before  your  door.  And  although 
you  c'annot  help  thinking  it  is  inconsiderate  to  make  such 
a  noise  just  as  you  are  in  the  throes  of  composing  a 
mandate  to  the  local  station-master  not  on  any  account 
to  forget  the  awning  and  the  mounted  police,  yet  you 
are  not  quite  sure,  lover  of  repose  as  you  are,  that  on  an 
occasion  of  this  kind  you  do  not  actually  welcome  a  certain 
amount  of  fuss.  Even  the  under-servants  were  aware  that 
the  young  prince  was  coming  at  last  ;  and  by  the  aid  of 
that  secret  service,  all-powerful  below  stairs,  they  knew 
that  his  coming  was  fraught  with  destiny.  International 
issues  were  at  stake.  They  went  almost  to  the  foundations 
of  that  decaying  empire,  whom  it  had  so  long  been  their 
privilege  to  serve.  Miss  Wayling,  great  heiress  and  incom- 
]iarably  lovcl}^  woman  as  she  was,  had  not  been  waiting 
for  Mr.  William  a  whole  fortnight  for  nothing. 


MAUD    WAYLING 

They  waited  dinner  for  the  young  man  that  evening. 
The  girls  had  never  beheld  anybody  one  quarter  so  beautiful 
as  Maud  Wayling  as  she  sat  in  the  drawing-room  pretending 
to  read  while  their  mother  was  knitting  and  while  they, 
one  and  all,  awaited  the  arrival  of  Billy  with  an  anxiety 
that  was  almost  breathless.  This  evening  she  went  beyond 
even  herself.  There  was  no  disguising  the  flush  of  ex- 
pectancy in  her  cheeks  ;  nor  did  she  try.  Perhaps  she 
knew  it  would  have  been  an  effort  made  in  vain,  for  there 
was  that  in  her  eyes  that  gave  her  away  just  as  effectually 
and  completely.  The  new  glamour  residing  there  and  the 
colour  in  her  face  lent  her  a  touch  of  human  warmth  and 
spirit,  far  more  appealing  than  her  more  natural  marble 
pallor.  She  was  clothed  exquisitely  but  simply ;  yet  it 
was  the  simplicity  which  came  from  Paris.  It  was  among 
their  earliest  discoveries  that  all  her  evening  gowns  had 
come  from  Paris.  Her  hair  was  done  in  such  a  manner  that 
her  maid  was  certified  to  be  an  artist.  She  came  from 
Paris  also.  They  were  too  spellbound  by  her  appearance 
to  be  sensitive  about  their  own.  In  the  presence  of  this 
majestic  splendour,  overawed  and  yet  delighted  by  it  as 
they  were,  they  could  spare  no  thoughts  for  their  own 
wretched,  tawdry  old  frocks  of  several  seasons,  and  their 
lank  hair  twisted  and  coiled  into  unwilling  order  by  no 
fingers  cunninger  than  their  own. 

This  time  Billy  came.  He  came  with  the  grace  and 
assurance  of  the  young  prince  that  he  was,  the  young 
prince  who  knows  no  law  beyond  his  own  inclination.  He 
placed  his  hands  on  his  mother's  shoulders  with  arrogant 
affection. 

"  Here  I  am,  old  Mums  !  "  he  said,  patting  her  fearlessly. 
"  Rather  rotten  of  me  to  keep  dinner  like  this.  The  rotten 
train  was  twenty  minutes  late  out  of  Paddington.  But 
you  don't  mind,  Mummy  ?     I  don't  come  to  see  you  often." 

He  then  saluted  his  father  cheerfully,  Maud  Wayling 
unconcernedly,  and  his  sisters  with  a  laugh,  a  nod,  and  a 
wave  of  the  hand  that  embraced  them  all  in  a  manner 
that  was  the  perfection  of  the  casual  and  the  friendly. 

Without  further  preface  or  apology  from  the  young 
man,  they  went  in  to  dinner.  Never  was  there  such  a 
cheery  soul.     He  overflowed  with  good  blood  and  high 

1J9 


BROKE    OF   COVENDEN 

spirits  ;  a  perfectly  frank,  jovial,  honest  wholesome  young 
gentleman,  with  the  merriest  laugh  and  the  sunniest  temper 
to  be  found  in  the  world.  From  the  moment  he  came  into  a 
room  you  could  not  help  falling  in  love  with  him,  He  was 
the  ideal  type  of  the  Englishman,  a  superb,  graceful,  agile 
animal  six  feet  high,  with  every  muscle  in  play  ;  a  fair- 
haired,  fair-skinned  Saxon  Adonis,  with  a  great  heart  swell- 
ing with  courage,  and  a  head  not  over-burdened  with  brains. 
The  very  striking  features  of  his  family,  which  could  hardly 
be  said  to  adorn  the  countenances  of  his  sisters,  were  to  him 
a  decided  embellishment.  The  admirable  large  equipoise 
and  symmetry  of  his  magnificent  physique  were  able  to 
carry  off  their  obtrusive  characteristics.  He  had  a  com- 
plexion that  any  woman  might  have  envied.  The  pink 
bloom  about  it  was  suffused  with  health,  expensive  living, 
and  exercise  in  the  open  air.  His  blond  moustache  could 
compete  with  any  in  the  service.  He  had  a  pair  of  very 
deep  blue  eyes,  large,  bold,  wide-set,  merry  and  fearless. 
It  was  not  to  be  wondered  at  that  their  possessor's  great 
claim  to  distinction  rested  on  the  fact  that  he  was  one  of 
the  most  intrepid  "  No.  3's  "  that  ever  rode  on  to  a  polo 
ground. 

To  this  amiable  tyrant  every  member  of  his  family 
bowed  down.  He  had  his  foot  on  the  necks  of  them  all. 
His  mother  relented  to  him  ;  it  was  no  secret  that  he  could 
twist  her  round  his  little  finger  when  he  chose.  His  father 
might  fulminate  against  him  in  his  absence,  even  as  he 
had  done  on  this  occasion,  but  at  heart,  as  everybody  knew, 
he  could  withstand  the  blandishments  of  Billy  no  better 
than  anybody  else.  Who  could  withstand  his  free,  merry, 
affectionate,  light-hearted  casual  way  ?  Certainly  not 
his  sisters,  least  of  all.  They  vied  with  one  another  in  a 
proper  adoration  of  this  godlike  brother.  To  them  he 
was  always  the  one  legitimate  young  prince  who  set  the 
fashion  of  youthful  manhood.  He  had  no  peer  in  those 
reverent  eyes. 

Ever3body  tried  to  spoil  him ;  yet  it  has  to  be  confessed 
that  he  emerged  perfectly  fresh  and  unspoilt  through  all 
the  adulation  he  received.  A  close  observer,  a  diver  below 
the  surface,  a  cynic,  a  person  with  a  prejudice  against 
human  nature,   might  have  made  an  attempt  to  lay  a 

160 


MAUD    WAYLING 

sacrilegious  finger  on  a  defect  in  the  fabric  of  this  hero- 
character.  They  might  have  suggested  that  he  was  a 
little  unthoughtful  of  others.  If  that  charge  can  be  sus- 
tained against  a  young  prince  who  receives  the  adulation 
that  is  poured  upon  him  from  every  quarter  as  his  natural 
right,  who  accepts  the  flatteries  not  only  of  word  but  of 
deed  that  are  lavished  upon  him  by  a  dazzled  universe 
as  so  many  acknowledgments  of  the  hereditary  excellence 
of  one  born  to  the  purple,  who  takes  the  cream  of  every- 
thing unquestioningly  in  the  simple  faith  that  it  is  so  much 
tribute  paid  by  vassals  to  their  liege,  who,  did  he  refuse 
their  offerings,  would  be  humbled  indeed,  if  that  charge 
can  be  sustained,  it  may  be  urged  against  Billy  with  equal 
justice.  He  skimmed  the  cream  wherever  he  went,  with 
sovereign  impartiality.  He  demanded  money ;  it  was 
paid  to  him  ;  he  expended  it  as  lavishly  as  he  could,  and 
demanded  more.  It  is  surely  not  expected  of  the  young 
prince  that  he  shall  stoop  to  inquire  by  what  means  his 
faithful  subjects  have  replenished  the  royal  coffers.  Every 
golden  piece  may  have  been  wrung  out  of  their  sweating 
souls  in  molten  drops  of  blood  and  tears,  but  your  young 
prince  is  not  to  be  troubled,  offended  possibly,  by  details 
of  that  sordid  nature.  Never  mind  the  pinching,  the 
scraping,  the  bhnd  devotion,  the  strenuous  self-denial  of 
these  his  faithful  subjects.  They  have  only  to  pay  their 
slow-drawn  cheques  over  to  his  bankers,  and  they  can  take 
it  from  him  that  they  shall  hear  no  more  about  it. 

On  the  other  hand,  his  faithful  subjects  must  be  wary  of 
demanding  anything  in  return.  There  were  a  few  privi- 
leged things  they  might  crave  without  impropriety,  but 
it  was  well  they  took  care  to  acquaint  themselves  before- 
hand that  they  were  not  likely  to  be  in  any  sense  distasteful 
to  the  royal  nature.  Your  young  prince  is  accustomed 
to  a  free  hand  in  everything.  It  is  his  right.  And  this 
one,  nurtured  in  a  becoming  fashion,  had  enjoyed  that  consi- 
deration all  his  life.  Even  at  Eton  he  had  been  the  most 
popular  boy  in  Sixpenny.  His  winning  ways  had  defeated 
his  masters  and  playfellows  with  ridiculous  ease.  It  had 
been  the  simplest  thin?  in  the  world  for  him  to  steal  what 
horse  his  fancy  turned  to,  while  his  companions,  without 
his  charm  of  manner,  were  not  permitted  to  look  over  the 

l6l  T 


BROKE    OF    COVENDEN 

hedge  of  the  field  in  which  that  particular  quadruped 
waggled  its  tail.  Whatever  he  desired  did  his  highness 
enjoy.  It  was  his  right.  And  by  a  similar  process  of 
reasoning  if  a  particular  act,  however  necessary  to  the 
commonweal,  was  not  acceptable  to  the  royal  nature,  not 
men,  not  heaven,  not  expedience  could  make  it  so. 

His  mother  had  half  suspected  this  trait  long  ago.  It 
had  yet  to  be  exhibited  to  the  light  of  day,  because,  however 
eagerly  his  family  had  contributed  its  all  for  his  well- 
being,  it  had  never  had  the  temerity  to  ask  anything  in 
return.  He  was  now  about  to  be  called  on  for  the  first 
time. 

More  than  once  had  the  young  man,  in  speech  and  in 
letters,  avowed  his  prejudice  against  Miss  Wayling.  He 
had  reiterated  that  "  she  was  not  his  sort."  The  plain 
statement  was  enough.  It  is  not  necessary  for  your  young 
prince  to  give  reasons.  It  is  enough  that  the  Miss  Way- 
lings  of  the  world  are  not  his  sort. 

They  had  been  thrown  together  at  Windsor.  Her 
guardian,  Colonel  Rouse,  who  commanded  the  regiment  of 
which  Billy  was  an  ornament,  was  an  old  friend  of  his 
people  ;  and  as  Billy  was  as  high  in  the  favour  of  his 
commanding  officer  as  he  was  in  that  of  all  the  world  else, 
he  was  offered  every  facility  for  seeing  a  good  deal  of  Miss 
Wayling,  who,  notwithstanding  her  rounds  of  country- 
house  visits,  and  her  hosts  of  acquaintance,  yet  contrived 
to  pass  much  of  her  time  under  the  roof  of  her  guardian. 
The  good  colonel  was  one  of  Mrs.  Broke's  oldest  friends, 
one  of  her  sincerest  sympathisers,  for  too  well  did  he  know 
the  difficulties  with  which  she  was  beset ;  also  he  was  not 
the  least  warm  among  the  admirers  of  her  qualities.  He 
was  fond  of  Billy  in  quite  a  paternal  fashion,  and  with 
the  connivance  of  the  young  gentleman's  mother,  if  not 
at  her  instigation,  as  common  friends  of  both  parties  were 
not  slow  to  aver,  he  foresaw  the  ultimate  welfare  of  all 
concerned.  His  ward  had  more  than  would  suffice  for  two. 
It  was  not  money  she  wanted,  nor  a  title  ;  she  required 
a  man  with  whom  she  could  be  happy.  Any  woman  could 
be  happy  with  young  Broke. 

During  dinner  the  young  man  did  not  condescend  to 
offer  a  word  in  explanation  of  his  strange  absence  of  the 

162 


MAUD    WAYLING 

fortnight  past.  Certainly  he  referred  to  his  bad  luck  at 
the  bridge  table.  In  that  period  he  said  he  had  lost  one 
hundred  and  ninety  pounds ;  an  admission  which  gave 
colour  to  his  father's  theory  that  his  club  in  Piccadilly 
had  been  his  hiding-place.  The  avowal  of  the  loss  excited 
no  visible  emotion  in  those  who  by  perpetual  pinching 
and  contriving  would  have  to  make  it  good. 

"  Bad  luck,  y'  know,"  he  said  cheerfully.  "  I  wonder 
why  these  things  make  it  a  rule  to  happen  when  it's  in- 
convenient. Last  year  it  wouldn't  have  mattered,  but 
it's  a  bit  awkward  just  now.  Mess-bills  have  a  knack  of 
going  up  month  by  month  like  the  deuce,  and  I've  been 
having  pretty  average  rotten  luck  with  my  ponies  latei_y. 
By  the  way.  Mummy,  I  got  your  cheque  all  right.  Besides, 
my  wretched  ruffian  of  a  tailor  is  getting  a  bit  restive  ; 
and  these  new  mess-kit  regulations  have  run  things  up  a 
trifle,  I  can  tell  you.  I'd  go  to  some  other  authorized 
robber  ;  but  it  is  only  the  fact  that  I  continue  to  order 
new  kit,  whether  I  want  it  or  not,  that  keeps  'em  civil. 
Unreasonable  set  of  people — tailors." 

The  unreasonableness  of  tailors  formed  perhaps  the  one 
pregnant  fact  in  the  existence  of  the  young  prince.  The 
conviction  was  so  firmly  rooted  in  his  mind  that  he  looked 
round  the  table  for  the  concurrence  of  all  present.  A 
little  whimsically  he  looked  round  the  table  for  their 
condolence.  His  mother  smiled  humorously,  although, 
to  be  sure,  she  took  in  her  breath  rather  sharp  ;  his  father 
gave  a  weary  guffaw  ;  his  sisters  spoke  as  one  that  tailors 
were  abominable ;  while  Maud  Wayhng,  as  usual,  did  not 
choose  to  say  anything,  but  contented  herself  with  looking 
at  Billy  steadily  with  an  odd  droop  in  the  corners  of  her 
mouth. 

After  dinner  Billy,  who  was  the  incarnation  of  animal 
energy,  initiated  his  sisters  into  the  mysteries  of  a  new 
parlour  game  rejoicing  in  the  euphonious  name  of  "  ping- 
pong."  For  that  purpose  he  produced  from  a  small 
wooden  box  an  apparatus  purchased  in  Regent  Street 
that  afternoon  ;  so  that  presently  the  dining-room  re- 
sounded with  the  joust  of  ball  and  battledore.  Billy,  of 
course,  was  easily  first  in  this  martial  exercise,  although 
his  sisters  were  fain  to  admit  that  Maud  WayUng  played 

163 


BROKE    OF    COVENDEN 

a  far  better  game  than  was  expected  of  her.  But  she  had 
played  before,  as  Joan  made  her  confess  when  the  eldest 
daughter  of  the  house  of  Broke  was  ignominiously  defeated 
by  her  in  "  a  love  set."  The  proceedings  became  really 
interesting  when  Joan,  whose  haughty  spirit  could  not 
brook  defeat,  least  of  all  from  such  hands  as  these,  challenged 
Miss  Wayling  to  another  encounter.  But  even  on  this 
occasion  she  fared  but  little  better,  despite  the  strenuous 
efforts  she  put  forth.  Again  she  had  to  bow  the  knee  to 
the  victorious  Miss  Wayling,  this  time  biting  her  lip  as 
she  performed  that  act,  and  with  a  special  colour  in  her  face. 
There  was  one  circumstance  that  struck  Billy's  sisters 
that  evening  with  a  degree  of  surprise.  He  seemed  wholly 
insensible  to  the  presence  of  his  fiancee.  He  hardly  spoke 
a  word  to  her.  In  fact,  he  might  be  said  to  avoid  her 
very  much  in  the  manner  they  had  learnt  to  do  them- 
selves. Considering  the  particular  relation  they  had 
come  to  stand  one  towards  another,  it  could  not  be  with 
him  as  with  them  :  surely  he  could  not  be  a  little  afraid 
of  her,  and  dislike  her  a  little  too.  AH  the  same,  there  was 
something  in  his  manner  towards  her  which  afforded  them 
food  for  their  so-keen  individual  observation.  Collectively, 
however,  their  reticence  was  much  too  great  to  allow  them 
to  embody  their  speculations  and  conjectures  in  formulas 
that  were  capable  of  circulation  even  among  themselves. 


I6. 


CHAPTER   XIII 

Affords  the   Spectacle  of  a  Woman  of  the 
World  coping    with  Difficulties 

DIRECTLY  he  had  eaten  his  breakfast  on  the  fDllo\\dng 
morning  Billy  linked  his  arm  through  his  mother's 
in  his  affectionate  familiar  manner,  as  she  was  on  her  way 
to  her  sitting-room,  with  the  words  : 

"  I  say.  Mummy,  my  leave's  up  to-day ;  I  shall  have  to 
get  back  to  quarters,  y'know,  to-night ;  and  before  I  go  I 
want  to  have  a  word  with  you  privately  about  something 
that's — well — er — that's  annoyed  me." 

"  That's  annoyed  you,  my  lamb,"  said  his  mother  ten- 
derly, letting  her  hand  lie  on  his  arm.  "  What  can  it  be,  I 
wonder  !  I  am  sure  I  must  hear.  To  think  that  anything 
should  have  annoyed  you,  my  precious  !  " 

Billy,  by  the  time  he  had  closed  the  door  of  the  room  and 
secured  privacy  to  their  conference,  had  concluded  that 
he  must  be  careful.  He  knew  his  mother's  little  ways. 
Therefore  he  entered  into  his  subject  with  as  little  preface 
as  possible. 

"  You  see,  it's  like  this,  you  wily  old  woman.  They've 
been  sticking  their  rotten  paragraphs  into  their  rotten 
newspapers  about  Maud  and  me.  Scores  of  people  have — 
er — congratulated  me  during  the  last  fortnight.  They've 
written  to  me  ;  they've  stopped  me  in  the  street ;  they've 
patted  me  on  the  back  in  theatres  and  restaurants  and  at 
the  club  ;  when  was  the  happy  day  and  so  on  !  I've  been 
having  a  cheery  time,  I  can  tell  you.  If  I  could  only  get  to 
know  the  name  of  the  journalist  man  who  started  the  game 


BROKE    OF    COVENDEN 

I  would  bring  an  action  for  libel.  Now,  I  want  your  advice. 
Mummy.  You  are  such  a  wise  old  bird  ;  you  are  so  awfully 
clever.  Ought  I  to  get  it  contradicted,  or  would  it  be 
better  to  ignore  it  ?  But  then,  you  see,  even  if  I  ignore  it 
other  people  won't." 

His  mother  composed  her  features  into  an  appearance  oi 
preternatural  pleasantness.  In  her  suavest,  most  melli- 
fluous accents  she  said  : 

"  What  an  absurd  boy  it  is  !  " 

"  Absurd  !  "  said  Billy.  "  Why  who  Hkes  it  to  be 
spread  about,  printed  in  the  newspapers  and  so  on,  that  he 
is  going  to  marry  a  girl  when  he  has  no  intention  ?  It  is 
awkward,  Mummy,  I  can  tell  you." 

"  I  don't  quite  understand,  my  pet." 

"  Why  it  says  in  these  newspapers  that  a  marriage  has 
been  arranged  between  Maud  and  myself." 

"  Well,  my  precious  ?  " 

His  mother  placed  a  note  of  interrogation  in  her  voice  in 
truly  beatific  fashion. 

"  Well,  Mummy  ?  "  said  Billy  blankly. 

For  the  moment  mother  and  son  stood  looking  at  one 
another  in  a  manner  that  a  third  person  might  have  found 
diverting.  There  was  a  humorous  twist  lurking  in  the 
corner  of  Mrs.  Broke's  countenance,  and  an  amused  smile 
glittered  indomitably  in  her  eyes  ;  while  on  the  other  hand 
the  countenance  of  Billy  was  rather  ludicrously  surrendered 
to  amazement. 

"  Oh  !  you  know  it  won't  do  at  all !  "  said  Billy,  breaking 
somewhat  awkwardly  a  silence  that  he  felt  to  be  more  awk- 
ward still.  "  You  are  playing  a  game,  you  know  you  are  ; 
but  it  won't  do,  you  know,  it  won't  at  all.  I  can't  stand 
Maud  ;  never  could." 

His  mother  very  righteously  but  very  tenderly  rebuked 
so  cavalier  a  reference. 

"  I  speak  as  I  feel,"  said  Billy  ruefully.  "  Always  did, 
you  know  ;  always  shall.  Maud's  not  my  sort.  She's  a 
bit  above  my  form.  I'm  a  plain  sort  of  chap  ;  don't  want 
anything  classy.  Maud  wants  a  duke  and  strawberry 
leaves  and  that  sort  of  rot." 

"  You  are  talking  noysense,  my  pet,  aren't  you  ?  I  am 
sure  dear  Maud  is  very  fond  of  you." 

1 66 


A   WOMAN    OF   THE    WORLD 

"  Can't  help  her  good  taste.  The  point  is,  Mummy,  I  am 
not  fond  of  her." 

"  Prejudice,  my  pet,  prejudice  !  You  do  not  disHke  her  ; 
no  one  could  dislike  such  a  dear  beautiful  girl  as  Maud. 
Perhaps  you  are  like  the  girls  ;  you  are  just  the  least  little 
bit  in  the  world  alarmed  by  her.  She  is  rather  thoughtful 
and  reserved,  poor  child.  However,  I  am  sure  that  is  a 
feeling  that  will  pass  ;  you  must  beheve  me,  my  dear  one, 
when  I  assure  you  that  you  are  all  somewhat  inclined  at 
present  to  underrate  her  nature.  You  will  find  it  a  very 
sweet  and  affectionate  nature  when  you  grow  to  appreciate 
it  more." 

"  I  don't  appreciate  it,"  said  Billy,  "  and  I  never  shall." 

"  My  angel ! "  said  his  mother  in  tones  that  sang.  "And 
do  you  thmk  one  of  your  years  has  had  the  experience 
to  form  a  trustworthy  estimate  ?  One  must  have  arrived 
at  a  period  of  complete  intellectual  and  moral  develop- 
ment to  be  a  competent  judge  in  a  matter  of  this  kind.  I 
will  concede  that  now,  at  this  moment,  you  may  hold  your- 
self more  capable  of  making  a  selection  of  a  suitable  partner 
for  life  than  your  mother  could  for  you,  but  you  must 
remember  that  a  person  who  at  twenty-five  may  be  ac- 
ceptable will  at  fifty,  say,  be  possibly  distasteful.  Beheve 
me,  my  precious,  there  is  a  certain  sagacity,  a  certain  ma- 
tured knowledge  of  the  world  required  for  the  choosing 
of  a  wife.  You  cannot  have  a  new  one  every  year.  You 
cannot  order  a  new  one  for  every  phase  of  mood  or  change 
of  fashion.  One  has  to  choose  the  qualities  that  will  wear 
well,  as  dear  old  Doctor  Primrose  said  !  " 

"  Suppose  I  don't  want  a  wife  ?  How  do  you  know  I 
want  a  wife,  Mummy  ?  " 

"  There  again,  my  precious,  I  am  sure  the  wise  course 
would  be  to  put  yourself  in  the  hands  of  those  who  have 
had  a  longer,  a  more  comprehensive  experience.  Surely, 
my  dear  one,  if  your  own  mother  does  not  know  what  your 
requirements  are,  may  I  ask  who  does  ?  " 

Billy  had  no  talent  for  argument,  as  he  would  have  been 
the  first  to  admit.  He  felt  keenly  the  sense  of  his  own 
impotence  in  this  sort  of  thing.  He  felt  that  the  most 
specious,  the  most  facile,  the  most  superficial  of  reasoners 
would  have  routed  him  utterly  and  put  him  to  shame.     On 

167 


BROKE    OF    COVENDEN 

this  final  point  she  had  urged  he  had  no  reply  to  make 
to  his  mother.  As  soon  as  it  came  to  argument  he  knew 
he  could  not  stand  up  before  her.  All  the  same  he  was  cast 
in  the  mould  that  is  tenacious  of  its  ideas.  Their  paucity 
rendered  them  choice.  And  whatever  they  might  be  they 
were  his  own,  and  therefore  were  sacred  in  his  estimation. 
Once  let  one  stray  into  his  head,  and  it  became  a  piece  of 
himself.  He  was  like  his  father  in  that.  The  fact  was  there 
to  confront  all  who  had  to  grapple  with  either  father  or 
son,  that  although  they  were  subscribers  to  very  few  ideas 
indeed,  for  each  had  an  extreme  reluctance  to  allow  such 
mischievous  innovations  to  establish  a  footing  in  their 
minds,  once  let  them  be  planted  in  the  virgin  territory, 
and  they  must  be  torn  from  their  context  of  flesh  and  blood 
before  they  could  be  uprooted.  His  mother,  who  had  data 
concerning  our  young  gentleman  more  efficient  than  any- 
body's, could  not  help  feeling  that  there  was  a  certain 
inherent  perverseness  in  the  fact  that  one  whose  mental 
habit  hardly  permitted  him  to  keep  two  notions  of  his  own 
under  his  hat  was  yet  found  to  be  in  possession  at  this 
moment  of  the  one  of  all  others  it  was  least  to  be  desired 
he  should  harbour. 

The  tenacity  this  one  unfortunate  little  idea  imbued  in 
the  stubborn  rogue  enabled  him  to  keep  his  head  up  and 
his  flag  flying.  He  might  be  at  a  loss  to  furnish  a  reply 
in  words  to  his  mother's  reasoning,  but  never  fear  he  had 
one  in  his  heart.  Therefore  he  continued  to  confront  her 
doggedly,  and  not  a  sign  of  yielding  could  be  traced  in 
him.  To  be  sure  he  was  rather  red  and  a  little  agitated  by 
the  consciousness  he  had  that  he  might  be  claiming  kinship 
with  that  mysterious  zoological  specimen,  the  consummate 
ass ;  he  hummed  and  hawed  ;  shifted  the  weight  of  his  body 
now  on  to  his  left  leg,  now  on  to  his  right ;  stuck  his  hands 
in  his  pockets  ;  whistled  ;  looked  out  of  window ;  per- 
formed all  the  manoeuvres  known  to  our  acute  masculine 
confusion,  but  that  defiant  unreason  still  remained  in  him 
that  nothing  could  defeat.  Mrs.  Broke  had  had  occasion 
more  than  once  to  deplore  it  in  his  father.  She  had  her 
experiences  in  handling  that  John  Bull  Englishman  to 
guide  her  in  this  case  of  his  son.  In  trifles  father  and  son 
were  aUke,  inasmuch  that  therein  both  would  submit  cheer- 

l68 


A   WOMAN    OF   THE    WORLD 

fully  to  dictation.  On  matters  they  could  regard  as  of  no 
particular  importance  it  was  comparatively  easy  to  induce 
them  to  listen  to  reason  as  dispensed  by  herself  the  never 
failing  well-spring,  the  fountain-head.  They  were  perfectly 
amenable  then.  But  in  the  things  that  mattered  they  had 
to  be  handled  with  the  gloves. 

Billy's  scruples,  or  rather  his  prejudices,  would  call  for 
some  delicacy.  The  fooUsh  boy  would  have  to  be  coaxed. 
His  mother  saw  too  plainly  that  argument,  mellifluous  as 
it  was  when  it  flowed  from  her  lips,  would  not  have  a 
straw's  weight  with  him.  In  the  fulness  of  her  wisdom, 
therefore,  she  decided  to  waive  the  matter.  With  his 
father's  character  to  guide  her,  by  the  light  of  it,  and 
recalling  the  mistakes  of  her  early  married  life,  she  closed 
the  discussion  peremptorily.  When  the  time  came  she 
would  have  to  be  prepared  to  force  our  young  gentleman's 
hand. 

Not  another  word  passed  between  mother  and  son  on 
this  topic.  Billy  went  back  to  his  regiment  that  afternoon. 
He  went  as  lightly  and  cheerily  as  he  came,  with  a  frank 
adieu  to  everj^body,  a  smile  on  his  face,  a  music-hall  air 
on  his  lips,  and  a  cheque  in  his  pocket-book  for  a  little 
matter  of  two  hundred  and  fifty  pounds.  He  returned  the 
same  perfectly  gallant,  heai'ty,  intrepid,  delightful  fellow. 
He  seemed  to  have  not  a  care  in  the  world  beyond  the 
set  of  his  tie  and  the  spotless  state  of  his  boots.  His  sisters 
in  a  body  accompanied  him  on  bicycles  to  Cuttisham 
Station.  All  the  -way  up  the  avenue  their  voices  were 
uplifted  in  laughter  and  merriment,  but  Billy's  was  the 
loudest  of  any.  It  was  impossible  not  to  be  gay,  not  to 
be  overwhelmingly  happy  when  this  most  delightful  of 
brothers  was  of  the  company.  He  was  as  hail-fellow 
well-met  with  them  as  he  was  with  the  rest  of  the  world. 
He  chaffed  them  and  teased  them  ;  slapped  them  on  the 
back  ;  called  them  "  old  chap  "  ;  made  them  his  comrades 
in  everything ;  and  charmed  them  with  his  so-charming 
ways  as  no  one  else  could  ever  do.  Well  might  they 
worship  the  ground  on  which  he  trod  ! 

Maud  Wayling  was  not  of  this  merry  party.  Billy  had 
taken  his  leave  of  her  in  the  drawing-room  ;  a  perfectly 
pleasant  and  friendly  good-bye.     A  highly-sensitive  person 

169 


BROKE    OF    COVENDEN 

might  possibly  have  discerned  a  far-away  sense  of  relief  in 
the  manner  of  it.  But  certainly  nothing  was  expressed  in 
his  demeanour  of  which  any  one  had  a  right  to  complain. 
Still  no  sooner  had  the  gay  voices  of  Billy  and  his  com- 
panions died  away  down  the  drive  than  Miss  Wayling 
ascended  to  her  bedroom,  turned  out  her  maid  who  was 
inserting  lace  in  an  evening  bodice,  and  locked  the  door. 
She  sat  looking  into  the  fire  for  several  hours  in  a  peculiar 
mechanical  way.  Some  burden  had  apparently  come 
upon  her  thoughts.  She  did  not  appear  again  in  public 
until  dinner,  and  then  it  was  remarked  by  her  critics  that 
she  was  even  duller  and  more  listless  than  before  Billy 
came.  Perhaps  she  was  upset  by  his  going  away  so  soon, 
for  certainly  they  had  never  seen  anybody  look  so  sad  as 
she  that  evening. 

Mrs.  Broke  spoke  to  her  privately  afterwards. 

"  You  must  not  pay  any  attention  to  Billy's  offhand 
ways,  my  dear  child,"  she  said  in  her  caressing  voice. 
"  Men  are  like  that.  They  strive  to  hide  their  real  feelings 
under  a  mask  of  indifference.  They  are  so  afraid  of  giving 
themselves  away,  poor  dears.  And  I  grieve  to  say  that 
our  poor  Billy  is  as  self-conscious  as  the  rest  of  his  sex. 
I  quite  understand,  my  dear  child,  that  it  is  not  unnatural 
that  you  should  be  affected  by  it ;  it  is  very  creditable  at 
least  to  your  inexperience  and  to  the  warmth  of  your 
affection.  I  recall  with  some  little  amusement  how 
miserable  I  was  when  the  inscrutable  self-control  of 
Mr.  Broke  filled  me  with  similar  misgivings.  Still  one 
must  suppose  this  romantic  attitude  to  life  to  be  insepar- 
able from  girlhood.  It  was  the  more  remarkable  in  my 
case,  because  I  am  by  nature  so  determinedly  prosaic. 
Ah  me  !  the  tortures  of  doubt  and  fear  and  wounded  self- 
love  I  endured,  and  all  the  time  my  dear  Edmund  was 
morbidly  afraid  of  giving  himself  away  !  But  beheve  me, 
my  dear  child,  you  could  not  wish  for  a  more  hopeful 
augury  of  the  prosperity  of  your  married  life.  When  you 
have  lived  a  little  longer  and  have  come  to  know  men 
better,  I  am  sure  you  will  understand  that  the  fondest 
and  truest  of  their  sex  are  those  who  perpetually  strive  to 
conceal  in  our  presence  the  warmth  of  the  feelings  with 
which  they  regard  us." 

170 


A    WOMAN    OF    THE    WORLD 

Miss  Wayling  had  no  reply  to  offer  to  these  words  of 
solace.  They  did  not  seem  to  remove  the  gloom  from 
her  heart.  At  Mrs.  Broke's  earnest  solicitation  she  con- 
tinued to  stay  on  at  Covenden.  The  kind  woman  w^s 
never  tired  of  protesting  that  dear  Maud  was  like  a  seventh 
daughter  to  her,  and  a  great  comfort  to  have  in  the  house. 
She  declared  that  the  other  six  were  of  a  somewhat  un- 
satisfactory sort,  who  brought  no  consolation  to  her 
maternal  spirit.  "  We  have  so  little  in  common,  my  dear 
Maud.  They  are  so  unfeminine  ;  they  ought  to  have  been 
men.  I  really  don't  know  what  I  should  have  done  had 
you  been  like  them." 

It  was  being  constantly  and  clearly  indicated  to  Miss 
Wayling  that  the  world  looked  upon  her  as  Billy's  fiancee. 
Even  his  mother  acknowledged  it  in  a  hundred  delicate 
ways.  The  girl  became  puzzled  and  a  little  distressed  by  it, 
yet  in  a  dim  way  she  supposed  it  was  all  right.  Her 
guardian  wrote  her  the  kindest  letters.  He  hoped  she 
would  stay  with  her  future  family  as  long  as  she  chose. 
He  congratulated  her  heartily  on  her  good  fortune.  It 
was  a  high  privilege  for  any  one  to  be  received  among  such 
people  as  the  Brokes.  The  kind  old  colonel  was  very 
pleased  that  everything  had  been  arranged  so  satisfac- 
torily. 

Maud,  accustomed  to  depend  so  much  on  others — no 
princess  of  a  reigning  house  was  more  carefully  hedged 
about  and  screened  and  shielded  in  every  conceivable 
manner — was  compelled  to  believe  that  the  whole  thing 
was  regular.  True,  Billy  had  not  extended  any  more  of 
his  attention  to  her  of  late  than  was  his  wont  formerly. 
Ever  since  the  far-off  days  of  their  first  coming  together, 
nobody  had  seemed  so  indifferent  to  her  presence  as  was  he. 
And  now  when  she  had  the  temerity  to  hope  that  he  might 
use  a  little  less  austerity  in  his  treatment  of  her,  he  neither 
looked  at  her,  nor  spoke  to  her,  nor  did  he  go  near  her  when 
he  could  avoid  so  doing.  And  he  did  not  favour  her  with 
his  correspondence.  Yet  plainly  he  must  have  spoken  of 
her  to  others  ;  how  else  could  the  impression  of  their 
engagement  have  been  circulated  so  widely,  and  affairs 
have  reached  their  present  stage  ?  It  was  all  very  mys- 
terious, but  she  supposed  there  could  only  be  one  ending, 

171 


BROKE    OF    COVENDEN 

and  that  the  right  one,  since  persons  of  the  widest  experi- 
ence and  the  deepest  wisdom,  a  cabinet  of  her  chosen 
ministers,  had  the  matter  in  hand  and  were  pledged  to  see 
it  through. 

Nevertheless,  it  was  not  in  the  least  like  what  she  could 
have  wished  it  to  be.  Surely  every  man  could  not  affect 
the  aloofness  of  Billy,  and  observe  such  a  lordly  disregard 
for  the  conventional  object  of  his  affections.  There  was 
too  much  of  maiden  fancy  in  her  to  permit  her  to  think  for 
a  moment  that  it  was  the  custom  for  marriage  to  be  drifted 
into  in  this  almost  heathen  manner.  Still  in  many  cases 
it  must  be  so,  or  people  would  have  been  alive  to  the 
phenomenon.  Somebody  must  have  advised  her  of  it, 
were  it  otherwise.  Every  day  brought  letters  of  con- 
gratulation from  her  wide  circle  of  acquaintance.  The 
announcement  in  the  newspapers  had  been  seen  by  all. 
One  or  two  of  her  girl  friends  wrote  to  say  how  delightful 
it  must  be  to  be  in  love,  and  how  delightful  also  to  be 
beloved  by  such  a  dear  handsome  fellow  as  Billy  Broke. 
One  tender  young  lady  of  seventeen  wanted  to  know, 
was  it  a  case  of  love  at  first  sight  ?  And  everybody  agreed 
that  she  must  be  quite  the  happiest  girl  in  the  world. 

In  none  of  the  letters  she  wrote  in  reply,  not  even  in 
that  to  her  guardian,  from  whom  she  had  never  kept  a 
secret  before,  did  she  allow  herself  to  make  the  confession 
that  she  could  have  wished  her  engagement  to  be  a  more 
romantic  affair.  She  was  too  proud  to  confess  to  anybody, 
almost  too  proud  to  confess  to  herself  that  she  felt  her 
position  keenly.  Her  nature  was  too  powerfully  self- 
centred  not  to  brood  upon  a  private  wrong  ;  but  it  was  too 
arrogantly  sensitive  to  allow  her  to  open  her  heart  to  others 
and  let  them  see  how  and  why  she  suffered.  The  one 
crumb  of  solace  she  could  bestow  upon  herself  was  that 
Billy  and  she  had  known  one  another  for  many  years 
They  had  been  hoy  and  girl  together.  He  was  always 
at  her  guardian's  in  his  school  days.  She  was  compelled 
to  admit  for  her  own  justification  that  familiarity  did  breed 
contempt  in  a  sense,  even  in  two  persons  engaged  to  be 
married. 

In  the  meantime,  if  Billy  wrote  no  letters  to  Maud,  he 
sent  more  than  one  to  his  mother.     They  were  conceived 

172 


A    WOMAN    OF    THE    WORLD 

in  various  keys  of  unrest.  He  complained  that  so  far 
from  people  allowing  the  distasteful  subject  to  drop,  they 
continued  to  insist  on  it  in  a  manner  that  annoyed  him. 
It  was  becoming  really  offensive  :  they  did  not  hesitate  to 
take  it  for  granted  that  he  was  actually  engaged.  Even 
Maud's  guardian,  who  of  all  men  should  have  known  better, 
treated  it  as  an  accomplished  fact.  The  young  gentleman 
did  not  know  when  he  had  been  so  disturbed.  He  vowed 
he  would  not  put  up  with  it.  Several  times  he  had  been  on 
the  point  of  telling  the  old  man  that  he  went  altogether 
beyond  the  mark.  He  exhorted  his  mother  to  write  at 
once  to  that  effect.  He  would  have  done  it  himself 
personally,  only  it  was  a  thing  that  no  fellow  liked  to  have 
to  tackle.     It  made  you  feel  such  an  ass. 

In  several  of  these  ingenuous  documents  he  urged  upon 
his  mother  the  necessity  of  allaying  this  monstrously  false 
impression  in  a  public  manner.  She  must  contradict  it  in 
the  newspapers,  where  the  mischief  had  begun.  In  others 
he  continued  to  assure  her  that  he  did  not  care  a  bit  about 
Maud,  and  never  had. 

As  letter  succeeded  letter  to  this  disconcerting  tenour, 
Mrs.  Broke  began  to  feel  that  the  thing  was  assuming  an 
air  of  difficulty.  She  had  been  so  much  in  the  habit  of 
wielding  an  absolutely  free  hand  in  the  management  of 
her  family,  and  everything  pertaining  to  its  domestic 
and  foreign  affairs,  that  it  was  not  easy  for  one  of  such  an 
autocratic  disposition  to  realize  that  her  beautifully  con- 
ceived plans  for  the  welfare  of  her  house  were  in  danger 
of  being  thwarted  by  the  insubordination  of  a  member 
of  it.  From  the  moment  our  young  gentleman  had  first 
delighted  and  flattered  the  world  by  appearing  in  it  he  had 
been  humoured  in  all  things.  It  had  not  been  thought 
necessary  to  rear  the  godhke  youth  in  the  Spartan  fashion 
of  his  sisters.  The  young  prince  is  the  young  prince.  He 
must  be  allowed  to  work  out  his  splendid  destiny,  un- 
trammelled by  the  laws  and  regulations,  the  checks  and 
precepts,  the  vigilant  guardians  of  the  young  rightly 
impose  on  common  mortals.  But  now  the  possibility  was 
beginning  to  take  shape  in  the  mind  of  the  hero's  mother 
that  the  latitude  conceded  to  him  was  likely  to  prove  a 
mistake.     Conceive    his   sisters    behaving   in    this    way  I 


BROKE   OF   COVENDEN 

They  would  have  put  their  hands  in  the  fire  at  her  behest. 

His  expressions  of  distaste  had  merely  amused  her  at 
first.  She  had  only  allowed  them  to  be  part  of  a  boy's 
bravado  and  inconsequent  assertion  of  himself.  As  the 
bride  was  not  of  his  own  choosing,  he  must  enjoy  the 
pleasure  of  making  it  a  favour  to  marry  her.  That  was 
eminently  boyhke  and  natural.  But  she  was  hardly  pre- 
pared to  encounter  this  degree  of  insubordination  in  him. 
He  must  be  aware  by  now  that  she  had  quite  made  up  her 
mind  that  he  should  marry  Maud.  And  in  that  case  his 
attitude  was  a  little  wanton,  a  little  indefensible.  She 
was  chary  of  applying  harsh  terms  to  the  apple  of  her 
eye,  the  darling  of  her  heart,  but  his  present  behaviour 
was  an  open  flout  to  her  authority.  No  one  knew  how  it 
hurt  her  to  make  that  charge  against  her  ewe  lamb ;  but 
there  was  no  help  for  it,  an  austere  bosom  must  not  flinch 
from  making  it.  And  now  she  was  beginning  to  grow  a 
little  afraid.  Dating  from  her  last  interview  with  him  she 
had  been  haunted  with  the  father's  capacity  for  unreason, 
which  at  that  moment  she  had  so  clearly  traced  in  the  son. 
Here  was  the  one  dread  factor  to  spoil  the  whole  thing. 
The  scheme  might  be  worked  out  with  mathematical 
precision  and  nicety,  but  the  intervention  of  an  hereditary 
despotism  was  capable  of  shattering  it  to  pieces.  There 
are  no  rules  that  can  guard  against  that.  From  the  instant 
that  fatal  tendency  had  declared  itself  in  the  young  hero, 
the  wise  lady  had  not  slept  quite  so  peacefully  at  night. 

Her  own  letters  to  him  had  been  couched  in  terms  of 
very  great  tact.  She  had  been  careful  to  exhibit  no  spark 
of  resentment  for  an  attitude  which  she  hinted  delicately 
he  must  know  to  be  egregious.  She  had  soothed  him, 
humoured  him,  caressed  the  boyish  vanity  in  him,  and 
neglected  no  means  known  to  a  pen  of  a  pre-eminent 
suavity  of  reconciling  him  to  the  inevitable.  Now  and 
again  she  appealed  tenderly  to  the  maternal  relation  to 
which  Fate  had  appointed  her,  and  with  beautiful  humility 
besought  her  offspring  to  trust  to  her  judgment  implicitly, 
because  she  was  acting  for  the  best,  not  only  as  far  as  he 
himself  was  concerned,  but  as  regarded  every  member  of 
his  family.  If  it  were  possible,  she  desired  to  spare  him 
the  excoriation  of  his  pride,  incident  upon  showing  him 

174 


A    WOMAN    OF   THE    WORLD 

that  what  the  whole  thing  really  amounted  to  was  a 
mariage  de  convenance.  She  had  a  considerable  sense 
of  delicacy.  Even  if  he  were  too  obtuse  to  see  what 
was  so  manifestly  his  duty  in  this  matter,  she  yet  had  no 
wish  to  wound  him  by  pointing  out  the  slightly  coarse 
nature  of  it.  But  even  that  last  resort,  a  httle  degrading 
as  it  was  perhaps,  must  be  adopted  if  "  her  precious  "  did 
not  soon  stand  forward  in  a  more  reasonable  light. 

To  this  end  she  wrote  several  letters,  in  which  the  finan- 
cial position  of  his  family  was  clearly  indicated,  and  one  at 
least  that  bore  a  veiled  reference  to  Maud's.  It  was  the 
first  time  that  so  crude  a  course  had  been  taken  with  the 
young  prince  ;  and  his  mother  felt  it  keenly.  She  had  a 
slight  sense  of  shame.  It  hurt  her  very  much  to  embarrass 
her  dear  one  with  these  sordid  details.  But  it  has  to  be 
confessed  that  it  hurt  her  more  when  her  dear  one  showed 
no  disposition  to  be  embarrassed  by  them.  The  letters  she 
received  in  return  betrayed  a  studiously  well-bred  avoidance 
of  the  unpleasant  topic  ;  his  passing  over  of  the  coarse 
allusion  to  the  amount  of  Maud's  income  was  equally 
studiously  well-bred.  His  mother  grew  a  little  piqued  by 
what  in  another  might  have  incurred  the  danger  of  being 
construed  as  callous  indifference.  So  acutely  did  it  touch 
her,  that  she  even  permitted  herself  to  go  the  length  of 
insinuating  veiled  charges  against  the  hero  of  the  misuse 
of  the  hard- wrung  money  with  which  he  had  been  furnished 
constantly,  and  of  extravagance  in  his  way  of  life.  It 
was  a  charge  that  no  one  had  dared  to  prefer  against  the 
young  Apollo  until  that  dark  hour.  He  replied  that  when 
one  was  in  the  Blues  one  had  to  do  as  the  Blues  did; 
His  brevity  vvas  significant. 

Such  indications  of  policy  underlying  the  affair  were  not, 
however,  without  their  effect.  His  highness's  letters  of 
protest,  of  complaint,  grew  less  frequent,  less  disconcert- 
ingly frank.  Thereupon  his  august  mamma,  only  too  eager 
to  place  on  this  modification  of  attitude  the  construction 
she  wished  to  see  upon  it,  composed  a  very  prettily-worded 
epistle  for  his  benefit.  In  it  she  sought  the  opportunity  of 
sounding  "  her  precious  "  as  to  what  he  felt  to  be  the 
most  convenient  season  for  the  celebration  of  the  nuptial 
rites — rites  monstrous  indeed,  but  were  we  not  all  slaves  of 

175 


BROKE    OF    COVENDEN 

the  monstPf  Convention !  Had  her  "  precious ''  any  feeling 
in  the  matter  ?  If  so  he  had  but  to  make  it  known  and  she 
would  be  only  too  eager  to  respect  it.  But  it  was  becoming 
essential  in  the  best  interests  of  dear  Maud  and  himself 
that  the  matter  should  be  settled  without  further  delay. 
And  as  particularly  she  wished  "  her  precious  "  to  enjoy 
a  perfectly  free  hand,  and  as  she  would  be  shocked  beyond 
expression  if  for  a  moment  her  angel  were  to  feel  that  she 
was  unduly  exercising  the  prerogatives  peculiar  to  the 
material  relation,  she  desired  nothing  more  ardently 
than  that  he  should  consult  his  own  taste  in  every  detail. 

To  this  pleasant  document  there  came  no  reply.  Billy's 
epistolary  powers  abruptly  gave  out.  He  may  have 
become  overpowered  suddenly  by  the  sense  of  his  own 
impotence.  His  was  not  the  most  facile  pen  that  ever 
ran  upon  paper.  It  was  paralyzed  probably  by  the  art 
revealed  in  that  last  letter  of  his  mother's.  It  may  have 
brought  home  to  him  that  he  was  too  inadequately  mounted 
on  his  Pegasus  to  compete  with  credit  in  such  a  high-class 
tournament. 

After  a  week  of  silence  Mrs.  Broke  wrote  again  in  similar 
terms.  Another  week  went  by,  but  still  no  answer  arrived 
to  either  of  these  communications.  She  grew  a  little  more 
uneasy.  This  was  a  form  of  opposition  that  she  did  not 
like.  It  was  not  Billy's  habit  to  be  silent.  He  was  such 
a  frank,  outspoken  creature  as  a  rule.  With  increasing 
uneasiness  she  reflected  on  the  significance  of  this  fact. 
When  in  the  ardour  of  controversy  his  father  grew  suddenly 
silent,  it  was  then  the  real  difficulties  arose  in  the  handling 
of  him.  She  was  moved  to  hope  that  the  parallel  was  not 
about  to  be  applied  to  the  son. 

By  the  time  three  weeks  had  gone  by  she  had  grown 
more  than  a  little  afraid.  So  abrupt  a  cessation  of  their 
intercourse  was,  to  say  the  least,  a  trifle  ominous.  Not 
for  a  moment  did  she  think  that  Billy  would  prove  impos- 
sibly obdurate.  From  a  lifelong  experience  of  a  character 
which  she  had  had  exceptional  facilities  for  studying,  she 
did  not  think  he  had  it  in  him.  But,  after  all,  one  never 
knew.  Heredity  could  never  be  quite  left  out  of  the 
question.  In  the  background  was  the  shadow  of  the 
wretched  sire,  of  the   sire  who  was  a  baffling  mixture  of 

176 


A   WOMAN    OF   THE    WORLD 

easy  tolerance  and  frank  despotism.  There  were  points 
on  which  the  father  could  be  the  most  arbitrary  man  alive. 
He  belonged  to  a  race  that  were  ridiculously  simple  to  deal 
with  up  to  a  certain  point ;  but  beyond  that  point  they 
were  liable  suddenly  to  take  the  bit  in  their  teeth  and  race 
away  headlong  until  their  so-few  wits  were  dashed  out  on 
the  rocks  of  their  own  folly  and  arrogance.  History  had 
recorded  instances. 

In  the  midst  of  these  rather  rueful  speculations  there 
came  a  letter  from  Billy  which  somewhat  sharply  resolved 
her  doubts. 


177  M 


CHAPTER  XIV 

In  which  a  Bomb  is   deposited  right  in  the 
Middle  of  our  Harmonious  Narrative 

IT  was  a  characteristic  production,  dated  "  Windsor, 
Wednesday,"  and  was  to  inform  his  mother  that  the 
previous  day  he  was  married  in  London. 

His  good  old  Mummy  was  not  to  be  very  down  on  him, 
as  he  had  made  the  promise  to  his  new  wife  some  time  ago, 
and  she  was  "  the  prettiest,  the  dearest  httle  donah  in  the 
world."  She  was  to  break  the  news  to  his  father  when  he 
was  in  a  propitious  mood  :  "  when  he  had  four  aces  in  his 
hand,  and  it  was  his  turn  to  make  the  trumps."  He  hoped 
his  good  old  Mummy  would  not  judge  either  of  them 
hastily.  She  must  first  see  his  "  dear  little  kid  "  before 
she  made  up  her  mind  about  her.  He  was  quite  cheerful 
personally  ;  she  was  such  a  jolly  little  sort  with  blue  eyes, 
"  a  little  bit  of  all  right."'  He  was  confident  that  his  dear 
old  Mummy  had  only  to  see  her  to  fall  in  love  with  her. 
Why,  "  Cock  "  Pearson,  the  most  cynical  "  sub  "  in  the 
service,  who  stood  groomsman  for  him,  said  when  he  saw 
her  that  he  would  have  married  her  himself,  if  he,  Billy, 
had  not  cut  in  first. 

It  was  well  perhaps  for  our  wise  and  august  lady  that 
she  could  claim  to  be  a  hard-bitten  woman  of  the  world. 
An  indomitable  clearness  of  head,  a  certain  stoicism  of 
spirit,  and  a  resolute  looking  of  things  in  the  face  had 
grown  to  be  a  kind  of  second  nature  with  her.  It  was  well 
indeed  that  she  was  a  strong  woman,  and  a  fearless,  not 
accustomed  to  flinch  at  trifles.  If  in  lieu  of  making  that 
communication,  Billy  had  doubled  his  fist -and  hit  out  with 

178 


A    BOMB 

all  his  force,  he  could  not  have  dealt  his  mother  a  fiercer 
blow. 

It  was  at  the  breakfast  table  that  this  painful  operation 
had  occurred.  Maud  Way  ling  was  drinking  tea  in  the 
silence  that  was  her  habit,  and  pecking  at  the  most  delicate 
morsels  of  bread  and  butter.  The  girls  were  laughing  and 
talking  at  the  top  of  their  voices,  and  were  discussing 
eagerly  the  proposed  incursions  of  the  field  that  were 
shortly  to  be  made ;  they  were  also  eating  bacon  and 
drinking  coffee  in  a  very  fearless  manner.  Their  father 
was  reading  a  leading  article  in  the  Standard  newspaper  ; 
and  was  in  the  act  of  enunciating,  "  that  one  of  these  days 
we  shall  be  driven  to  take  decisive  action  in  the  Transvaal." 

This  preoccupation  of  the  members  of  her  household 
served  Mrs.  Broke.  Any  agitation  that  might  have  been 
visible  in  her  passed  without  remark.  Presently,  however. 
Broke,  casting  the  Standard  aside,  inquired  if  Billy  had 
written  again,  as  some  time  had  passed  since  his  previous 
letter. 

"  Not  yet,"  said  Mrs.  Broke  placidly. 

At  the  earliest  moment  she  made  good  her  escape  to  her 
morning  room.  In  that  security  she  re-read  her  son's 
extraordinary  communication  with  clenched  teeth.  She 
re-read  it  syllable  by  syllable,  until  every  word  was  burnt 
in  her  brain. 

Even  then  it  took  some  little  time  before  she  could  convey 
with  any  sense  of  adequacy  to  her  seared  intelligence  all 
the  facts  as  there  set  forth.  They  had  to  be  insinuated 
one  by  one,  and  pieced  together  with  patient  elaboration, 
before  their  meaning  could  be  rendered. 

If  words  meant  anything  her  son  was  married.  The 
significance  of  such  a  fact  was  too  wide-reaching  to  be  at 
once  assimilated.  But  in  the  first  place,  and  most  obviously, 
it  very  plainly  put  an  end  to  this  affair  of  Maud  Wayling. 
In  other  words,  it  meant  their  financial  ruin.  They  had 
held  on  tenaciously  for  several  years  with  no  other  prospect 
than  Billy's  ultimate  union  with  her.  Only  Mr.  Breffit 
and  their  bankers  knew  how  compromised  they  were. 
Here  was  an  end  to  that  fury,  that  madness  of  pinching, 
scraping,  and  contriving  ;  of  that  perpetual  seeking  of 
ways  and  means  and  putting  off  of  the  evil  day ;  of  those 

179 


BROKE    OF    COVENDEN 

attempts  to  keep  up  appearances,  that  their  position  might 
appear  less  hopeless  than  it  really  was.  None  knew  but 
she  what  they  had  had  to  go  through.  Even  her  husband 
and  his  agent  did  not  know  all ;  but  it  was  over  now.  It 
was  over  ;  it  only  remained  for  the  curtain  to  be  rung 
down  on  their  trivial  affair.  People  would  smile  when 
they  heard  about  it,  for  the  space  of  a  week  perhaps,  at 
dinner  tables  and  in  drawing-rooms  ;  and  their  signifi- 
cance in  their  little  scheme  of  things  would  no  longer  be. 

This  was  but  a  fragmentary,  an  inconsecutive  survey  of 
what  her  aching  wits  were  first  able  to  translate.  After 
a  while  more  data  floated  up  to  the  surface  to  be  reclaimed 
out  of  the  vast  mass  that  went  to  the  making  of  a  chaos 
far  down  in  that  bewildered  brain.  The  aspect  in  which 
they  represented  the  matter  might  not  be  so  poignant,  so 
final  in  one  sense,  but  in  another  and  the  one  an  English- 
woman is  rather  prone  to  adopt,  equally  embarrassing, 
equally  pregnant  with  disaster.  Billy  had  refrained  from 
a  declaration  of  the  social  position  of  the  person  he  had 
married.  It  was  true  that  he  allowed  her  to  be  "  the 
dearest  little  donah  in  the  world  "  ;  that  his  idyllic  fancy 
had  painted  her  as  "  a  jolly  little  sort  with  blue  eyes,  and 
tricky  little  ways,"  and  as  a  person  whom  "  the  most 
cynical  '  sub '  in  the  service "  was  prepared  to  marry 
himself ;  but  even  in  the  midst  of  these  revels  of  description 
a  cold  feeling  came  over  our  unfortunate  lady  that  the 
"  little  donah  "  might  turn  out  to  be  a  housemaid. 

Of  course  on  the  face  of  things  that  did  not  seem  possible. 
After  all,  the  wretched  boy  was  her  son,  and  the  son  of  his 
father.  He  might  turn  obstreperous,  and  choose  to  ruin 
his  family  rather  than  submit  his  will  to  that  of  another, 
but  it  was  scarcely  hkely  that  he  would  wantonly  degrade 
himself  and  those  he  held  dear.  But  when  she  pondered 
the  ways  of  young  men  with  a  tendency  to  wildness  in  them ; 
when  her  thoughts  reverted  twenty  years  back  to  the 
tragi-comedy  of  her  brother  Charles  and  the  actress  of  the 
Gaiety  Theatre,  she  was  fain  to  admit  that  youth  would 
occasionally  insist  on  the  indulgence  of  its  foibles. 

There  was  really  no  saying  to  whom  Billy  was  married. 
But  at  least  the  chance  was  remote  that  his  wife  was  a 
person  of  the  right  sort.     It  was  quite  as  remote  that  she 

iSo 


A    BOxMB 

was  presentable.  Young  men  about  town  were  only  too 
likely  to  have  an  immature  taste  in  these  things.  Besides, 
a  person  of  proper  instincts  and  right  surroundings  would 
hardly  consent  to  be  whirled  into  matrimony  in  this  sur- 
reptitious fashion  Her  people  would  insist  on  knowing 
something  of  his. 

More  probably  she  had  no  people.  The  chances  were 
that  she  was  something  outside  the  pale  :  a  barmaid,  or  a 
ballet  dancer,  or  an  adventuress  of  one  kind  or  another, 
who  had  deliberately. entrapped  him. 

After  an  hour  spent  in  dehberation  of  this  bitter  kind, 
Mrs.  Broke  sent  a  telegram  to  her  son  :  "  Meet  me  at  Aunt 
Mary's  at  Hill  Street  this  afternoon  or  evening.  Shall 
wait  until  you  come."  She  also  sent  a  telegram  to  her 
sister  to  say  that  she  had  to  visit  town  that  morning  on 
important  business,  and  would  be  in  need  of  luncheon  and 
possibly  of  a  bed.  She  was  essentially  a  woman  of  action. 
By  making  the  effort  she  could  catch  the  10.15  train  from 
Cuttisham.  Telling  Broke  briefly  that  her  sister  Mary 
wished  to  consult  her  on  a  matter  of  importance,  and  that 
she  might  have  to  stay  the  night  at  Hill  Street,  our  redoubt- 
able lady  presently  set  forth  on  her  pilgrimage,  and  got  to 
the  railway  station  in  time. 

In  the  train  she  had  leisure  to  review  the  matter  that 
was  harrowing  her  thoughts.  Recurring  for  the  tenth 
time  to  the  fatal  letter  she  became  convinced  that  Billy 
in  his  headlong  folly  and  wilfulness  had  fallen  the  victim 
of  one  who,  with  a  vagueness  that  was  wholly  admirable, 
she  termed  an  adventuress.  And  assuming  that  to  be  the 
case  all  was  not  yet  lost.  A  person  of  that  kind  was  sup- 
posed in  the  popular  imagination  to  keep  in  the  back- 
ground a  previous  husband,  who  had  the  trick  of  issuing 
from  his  obscurity  at  a  convenient  hour.  When  this 
happy  possibility  came  into  her  mind  a  lurid  picture  was 
thrown  before  her  eyes  of  a  drunken  villain  springing 
forward  to  levy  blackmail.  The  distressed  lady  had  too 
keen  a  sense  of  the  ludicrous  not  to  laugh  at  herself  a 
little  ;  but  when  we  are  suffering  pain  of  an  acute  kind  are 
we  not  apt  to  seek  relief  in  the  contemplation  of  weird  and 
drastic  remedies  ? 

iSi 


CHAPTER  XV 
L'Egoisme  a  Deux 

HER  sister  Mary  was  the  wife  of  a  Cabinet  Minister, 
and  a  leader  of  society.  She  was  a  cheerful  world- 
ling, an  amiable  savage  whose  odd  reputation  for  philan- 
thropy entitled  her  to  a  place  in  a  museum,  as  would  that 
of  a  devil  fish  endowed  with  the  domestic  affections.  Her 
mission  in  life,  in  the  primary  sense,  seemed  to  be  to  open 
bazaars  for  charitable  purposes ;  in  the  secondary,  to 
misrepresent  her  face  and  person  by  the  aid  of  science,  and 
afterwards  even  more  sedulously  to  misrepresent  them  by 
the  aid  of  the  illustrated  press.  Notoriety  was  her  passion  ; 
and  she  went  about  doing  good,  attended  by  footmen  and 
reporters,  and  the  applause  of  her  claque.  Her  appear- 
ance, which  owed  considerably  more  to  art  than  to  nature, 
was  as  familiar  as  that  of  royalty  itself  in  the  shops 
of  Regent  Street ;  and  almost  every  day  she  published 
a  new  scheme  in  the  newspapers,  her  sworn  and  bosom 
friends,  for  the  amelioration  of  the  human  race  and  the 
animal  creation.  Now  it  was  a  Cottage  Hospital  for  Blind 
Mice  ;  now  a  Society  for  the  Cultivation  in  the  Agricultural 
Labourer  of  a  Distaste  for  Work  and  a  Fondness  for  Home- 
Brewed  Ale.  She  was  the  perpetual  president  of  that 
famous  and  old-established  Society  for  Providing  Little 
Black  Children  with  White  Pocket-handkerchiefs.  She 
was  the  best  advertised  thing  in  England  with  the  exception 
of  Mr.  Beecham's  Soap  ;  and  the  most  hard-worked  with 
the  exception  of  Mr.  Pears'  Pills. 

The  strain  of  keeping  in  the  centre  of  the  public  eye  had 
made  her  prematurely  old.      It  was  an  open  secret  that  she 

182 


L'EGOISME   A    DEUX 

used  belladonna  to  brighten  her  eyes,  and  cocaine  to 
brighten  her  intellect.  She  kept  the  best  table  and  the 
worst  company  in  London.  Her  claim  to  distinction  in 
her  own  set  was  that  she  was  the  only  woman  in  it  who 
had  been  able  to  retain  the  husband  with  whom  fate  had 
decorated  her.  She  was  known  to  fame  as  the  Honourable 
Mrs.  Twysden-Cockshott,  and  her  husband  the  Right 
Honourable  Reginald,  the  President  of  the  Board  of 
Supererogation,  had  not  put  his  foot  over  the  threshold  of 
his  wife's  residence  in  Hill  Street  for  thirteen  years.  He 
divided  his  time  between  the  House  of  Commons  and  his 
Club.  In  the  popular  magazines  the  satisfaction  was  his, 
however,  of  seeing  his  name  included  among  those  of  the 
fortunate  many  who  owed  their  success  in  life  to  their 
wives.  He  could  also  have  added,  which  he  was  much  too 
chivalrous  to  do,  that  he  was  qualif3ing  to  have  his  name 
added  to  the  list  of  those  who  owed  to  their  wives  their 
appearance  in  the  Court  of  Bankruptcy.  However,  he 
was  no  longer  responsible  for  her  debts.  To  the  pedestrian 
world  that  walked  on  the  pavement,  the  clientele  of  the 
halfpenny  morning  journal,  he  owed  his  own  distinction  to 
the  fact  that  he  bore  the  same  name  as  the  Honourable 
Mrs.  Twysden-Cockshott.  In  himself  he  was  an  inoffensive 
man  with  a  considerable  effacement  of  character,  and  a 
complete  set  of  ideals  bequeathed  to  him  by  a  maiden  aunt 
of  old-fashioned  notions,  which  had  proved  rather  too  high 
for  the  present  state  of  our  progress. 

To  them  at  Hill  Street  came  Mrs.  Broke  in  her  distress. 
She  only  went  to  poor  dear  Mary's  when  it  was  not  con- 
venient that  houses  sweeter  in  repute  should  find  her 
sanctuary.  The  name  of  Aunt  Mary  was  never  mentioned 
in  the  family  of  Covenden.  She  belonged  to  the  category 
of  those  unfortunates  who  had  "  gone  under  "  ;  and,  though 
she  appeared  to  be  particularly  alive,  not  to  say  kicking, 
in  the  subterranean  region  whither  she  had  gone,  she  had 
no  existence  for  her  relations  in  the  country,  except  on 
the  rare  occasions  that  it  happened  to  be  convenient  she 
should  have.  To-day  it  chanced  that  she  stood  in  this 
fortunate  position  in  the  eyes  of  her  sister  Jane.  Mary's 
was  a  sort  of  "  pot  house,"  whither  she  could  go  when  she 
liked  for  as  long  a  time  as  she  cared  to  stay.     She  could 

183 


BROKE    OF    COVENDEN 

take  whom  she  Hked  with  her,  or  make  an  appointment 
to  meet  whom  she  Hked  when  she  got  there. 

When  our  redoubtable  lady  arrived  at  Hill  Street  on 
the  stroke  of  twelve,  she  was  relieved  to  find  that  her 
sister  was  abroad  in  the  world  already  and  was  not  ex- 
pected home  to  luncheon.  She  was  in  no  humour  to  cope 
with  her  just  then.  All  the  afternoon  she  sat  in  the  draw- 
ing-room waiting  for  the  coming  of  her  son,  with  an 
impatience  she  strove  to  allay  with  attempts  at  reading. 
A  few  minutes  before  five  o'clock  he  was  shown  in  to  her. 

"  Ha,  old  Mums  !  "  he  said  with  his  habitual  arrogant 
cheeriness,  "  so  here  we  are  !  " 

"  Will  you  have  a  cup  of  tea,  my  precious  ?  " 

Her  accents  were  as  prodigiously  sweet  as  when  he 
interviewed  her  last. 

"  Thanks  aw'fly." 

Our  redoubtable  lady  watched  him  a  little  curiously 
while  he  put  cream  and  sugar  in  his  tea,  stirred  it,  and  drank 
it|  and  noted  that  his  self-possession  was  as  perfect  as  her 
own.     Then  she  said — 

"  What  did  you  mean  by  that  rather  stupid  letter  you 
sent  me  this  morning  ?  Do  you  know  you  rather  alarmed 
me,  my  pet  ?  " 

"  Oh,  you  must  buck  up,  you  know,"  said  our  young 
gentleman  cheerily.     "  It  was  a  bit  sudden,  wasn't  it  ?  " 

"  What  was  a  bit  sudden,  my  precious  ?  " 

"  That  letter." 

"  Really  one  can  hardly  say  that.  It  was  three  whole 
weeks  since  you  wrote  before." 

"  Was  it  so  long  as  that  ?  I  didn't  think  it  was  so  long  ; 
how  the  time  does  get  on,  doesn't  it  ?  " 

"  It  does,  my  love,"  said  his  mother,  opening  her  blue 
eyes  as  wide  as  she  could  get  them,  apd  beaming  upon  him 
steadily. 

Billy  met  them  with  an  imperturbability  hardly  inferior 
to  her  own.  He  rubbed  one  hand  carefully  round  his 
silk  hat. 

"  I  think,  Mummy,  I'll  have  another  cup  of  tea.  The 
tea  is  very  good." 

"  Yes,  my  love,  quite  good." 

Our  redoubtable  lady  continued  to  look  at  her  son 
184 


L'EGOISME    A    DEUX 

steadily.  The  smile  was  still  in  her  eyes ;  her  voice  was 
calm  and  beautifully  controlled. 

"  What  did  you  mean,  my  darling,  by  that  ridiculous 
assertion  that  you  were  married  yesterday  morning  ?  " 

"  Ridiculous  !  "  said  Billy.  "  Why  ridiculous.  Mummy  ? 
I  don't  quite  see  how  the  truth  can  be  ridiculous." 

"  Then  it  is  true,  my  dear  one  ?  " 

"  Of  course.     I  wouldn't  rag  you,  you  know." 

"  And  who,  pray,  is  the  favoured  person  ?  " 

There  was  the  half-smile  still  lurking  in  her  cool  blue 
eyes.  There  was  the  same  suggestion  of  a  slightly  amused 
suavity  with  which  she  had  begun  the  conversation. 

"  She's  a  peach,"  said  Billy. 

"  Who,  my  love  ?  " 

"  A  peach  !  " 

"  I  don't  think  I  know  the  family.  I  believe  there 
are  some  people  called  Mowbray  Peach  in  Warwick- 
shire. But  I  cannot  say  that  I  enjoy  the  pleasure  of  their 
acquaintance." 

"  I  don't  mean  people  at  all,  you  dear  old  silly,"  said  Billy, 
laughing  heartily.  "  A  peach — a  regular  picture,  y'know. 
Something  sweet  and  tempting  and  good  to  look  at." 

"  And  who  is  this  person,  my  lovcs,  who  is  sweet  and 
tempting  and  good  to  look  at  ?  " 

"  My  wife,"  said  Billy,  taking  his  hat  off  one  knee  and 
placing  it  on  the  other. 

"  Of  course,  my  love.  But  who  was  she  before  she  was 
your  wife  ?  " 

Our  young  gentleman  paused.  He  carefully  placed  back 
his  hat  upon  his  other  knee. 

"  You  must  promise,  my  dear  old  Mums,"  he  said  after 
reflection,  "  that  if  I  tell  you,  you  will  not  be  prejudiced 
and  so  on.  You  must  promise  me  that  you  will  not  despise 
her  for  what  she  has  been." 

"  I  am  afraid  I  cannot  enter  into  any  promises  of  that 
kind." 

"  Then  I  am  afraid  I  cannot  tell  you." 

Mother  and  son  found  themselves  looking  steadily  into 
one  another's  eyes.  It  was  the  first  time  in  their  lives 
that  they  had  been  afflicted  with  a  sense  of  antagonism  in 
their  personal  relations.     It  was  as  sudden  as  it  was  un- 

185 


BROKE    OF   COVENDEN 

expected.  In  spite  of  her  mantle  of  stoicism  our  redoubt- 
able lady  could  not  repress  the  shudder  that  went  creeping 
through  her  veins.  She  was  face  to  face  with  a  lifelong 
error.  From  the  day  of  his  birth  she  had  thought  she 
knew  all  there  was  to  know  about  Billy.  Here  now  she 
was  confronted  with  the  knowledge  of  how  completely  she 
had  deceived  herself. 

"  I  promise,  my  darling,"  she  said  meekly. 

"  Bible  oath,  you  know,  old  Mums,"  said  Billy  with  a 
short  laugh.  "  May-I-cut-my-throat-before-I-die  sort  of 
business,  don't  you  know." 

"  Don't  be  silly,  my  pet.  I  am  not  in  the  habit  of 
making  promises  unless  I  intend  to  keep  them." 

"  I  would  not  be  too  sure  of  that  if  I  were  you,  you  dear 
wily  old  thing.  You  see,  she  is  my  wife  now,  and — er  I 
may  be  a  little  bit  sensitive  for  her,  you  know.  She's 
mine,  don't  you  know  ;  and  if  I  thought  anybody  was 
going  to  look  down  on  her,  or  annoy  her,  or  make  her  feel 
that  she  was  not  as  good  as  they  were,  they  should  not 
see  her,  Mummy,  do  you  see  ?  " 

"  You  are  lucidity  itself,  my  pet.  But  why,  may  I  ask, 
should  I  of  all  people,  your  own  fond  foolish  old  mother, 
who  has  doted  on  you  all  your  life,  be  likely  to  act  like  this 
towards  the — the — er  person  you  have  chosen  to  marry  ?  " 

"  I  certainly  don't  know  why  you  should.  But  there  is 
no  saying  when  one  has  got  you,  you  wily  old  woman  ;  and  if 
you  don't  mind  my  saying  it,  you  dear  old  Mummy,  you 
can  be  very  down  on  people  when  you  like.  I've  seen  you 
give  those  poor  kid  sisters  of  mine  '  gyp,'  I  can  tell  you. 
Oh,  I  know  you  !  Now  this  dear  little  kid  of  mine  is  the 
sweetest  little  girl  in  the  world  and  the  best ;  and  if  even 
I  allowed  my  dear  old  Mummy  to  come  along  and  make 
her  pretty  eyes  red  for  her,  I  should  never  forgive  myself." 

"  You  speak  in  riddles,  my  dear  one.  Why  or  how  I 
should  make  the  pretty  eyes  of  the — the — er  person  red, 
I  fail  to  understand.  May  I  ask,  she  is  not  one  of  those 
fashionable  persons  who  have  a  past  ?  " 

"  Lord  no  !  "  said  Billy  with  vehemence.  He  placed 
his  hat  on  the  carpet  out  of  the  way  of  danger.  "  What  a 
rotten  thing  to  say,  Mummy  !  " 

"  It  was,   my  pet,"   said    his    mother    with    beautiful 
lS6 


L'EGOISME   A    DEUX 

humility.  "  I  am  sure  I  beg  j^our  pardon.  But,  really,  you 
alarm  me  so  with  your  hums  and  haws,  that  I  hardly  know 
how  to  place  her.  Come  now,  my  dear  one,  please  reveal  to 
me  in  just  two  plain  words  who  this  person  is  I  understand 
you  to  have  married." 

"  Well,  if  you  must  know,  she  is  a  little  girl  out  of 
Perkin  &  Warbeck's  shop  in  Bond  Street,  the  right-hand 
side,  you  know,  going  out  of  Piccadilly." 

"  Thank  you,  my  darling,  that  is  all  I  wished  to 
know." 

There  was  not  a  flicker  in  the  placid  countenance.  Her 
lips  were  a  little  tighter  together  than  was  their  wont ; 
they  were  drawn  in  until  her  mouth  was  set  in  a  sharp, 
straight  line.  Billy  thought  he  had  never  seen  the  hard 
lights  dance  quite  so  quickly  and  so  luminously  in  her  eyes. 
As  he  looked  at  her  he  could  not  help  thinking  that  his 
mother  was  magnificent. 

"  Mummy,  you  are  an  old  brick."  The  admiration  in 
his  face  was  a  part  of  the  frankness  which  he  always 
allowed  himself. 

"  Thank  you,  my  dear  one ;  you  compliment  me." 
Will  you  take  another  cup  of  tea  ?  There  is  just  one  left 
in  the  pot,  if  it  is  not  too  cold." 

"  Thank  you  very  much,"  said  Billy  ;  "  I  think  I  will." 

He  picked  up  his  hat  again  and  placed  it  a  little  farther 
out  of  the  way  of  danger.  Mrs.  Broke  poured  out  his 
third  cup  of  tea  and  presented  it  to  him  with  a  hand  that 
did  not  shake. 

"  I  suppose,  my  angel,"  she  said  in  a  low  matter-of-fact 
voice,  "  you  know  that  you  have  ruined  us  all  ?  " 

"  Oh  rot.  Mummy  !  "  said  our  young"  gentleman  cheerily. 
"  You  mustn't  talk  like  that,  you  know.  You  are  not 
going  to  take  on  about  it ;  you  are  much  too  censibie  an 
old  bird." 

"  You  have  ruined  us  completely  and  effectually." 

*'  You  mustn't  talk  like  that,  you  know.  I  took  a  bold 
step,  but  it  doesn't  mean  that,  I  am  sure.  She  is  such  a 
jolly  Httle  beast." 

"  Our  very  existence  depended  on  your  marriage  with 
Maud.  We  are  hopelessly  compromised  in  a  financial 
sense,  and  now  in  a  social  one — — " 

187 


BROKE    OF    COVENDEN 

"  Suppose  you  don't  say  it  ?  "  said  Billy  with  a  wheed- 
ling air. 

"  Very  well,  my  precious,  I  will  not,  as  you  wish  it.  But 
I  think  it  necessary  that  you  should  be  brought  face  to 
face  with  the  state  of  affairs  in  which  your  somewhat 
unfortunate,  not  to  say  hasty,  act  has  involved  us." 

"  Whether  it  is  unfortunate  or  not.  Mummy,  remains  to 
be  seen,  but  in  any  case  it  was  not  hasty.  I  had  been 
thinking  of  it  for  some  time,  although  I  will  admit  that 
when  this  Maud  business  came  along  it  may  have  forced 
my  hand  a  bit.  But  now  I've  taken  the  plunge,  I  have 
sort  of  made  my  bed,  don't  you  know,  and  I've  got  to  lie 
in  it.  It  may  be  a  bit  awkward  at  first  for  everybody. 
I  daresay  it  will,  but  the  dear  little  kid's  mine  now,  my 
very  own,  and  I  am  hers,  and — and  there  you  are  !  She's 
a  little  bit  of  all  right.     Suits  me  down  to  the  ground." 

"  I  do  not  doubt,  my  love,  that  all  you  say  is  perfectly 
true  ;  but  may  I  ask  why  you  did  not  take  me  at  any  rate 
into  your  confidence  before  you  embarked  on  a  step  of  such 
a  final  nature  ?  " 

"  I  hope,  you  dear  old  thing,  you  did  not  expect  me  to 
be  such  a  jay.  Everybody  would  have  made  such  a  fuss. 
I  hate  a  fuss.  Besides,  I  was  obliged  to  keep  it  from  our 
crowd.  I  can  breathe  easier  now  I  have  brought  it  off.  It 
was  a  rather  ticklish  thing,  I  don't  mind  telling  you." 

Our  redoubtable  lady  took  in  her  breath  in  several 
sharp  little  spasms  that  cut  like  knives. 

"  Do  you  quite  think  you  ought  to  congratulate  yourself, 
my  darling  ?  "  she  asked  a  little  wearily. 

"  It  is  the  best  day's  work  I've  done.  I  would  not  part 
with  my  httle  girl  for  money." 

"  Then  you  are  quite  insensible,  my  angel,  to  the  dis- 
grace and  ruin  of  your  family  ?  " 

"  There  you  go,  Mummy,"  said  Billy  with  pathos, 
"  making  a  fuss  !     I  wish  .now  I  had  not  told  you." 

"  You  must  please  forgive  me,  my  dear  one,"  said  his 
mother  with  winning  humility. 

All  the  same  at  that  moment,  had  she  held  a  lethal  weapon 
in  her  hand  she  might  conceivably  have  slain  her  son. 
Not  only  was  she  nearly  crushed  to  earth  by  the  realization 
of  her  worst  fears — a  shop-girl  out  of  Perkin  &  Warbeck's 

i88 


L'EGOISME    A    DEUX 

shop  in  Bond  Street  belonged  emphatically  to  the  category 
of  the  impossible  without  even  the  saving  clause  of  an 
adventuress  with  a  husband  to  levy  blackmail — but  at  the 
same  time  she  was  bitterly  angry.  Our  young  gentleman's 
promptings  she  understood,  but  his  folly  was  incredible. 
Trained  woman  of  the  world  as  she  was,  she  recognized  that 
such  a  detachment  of  mind  was  almost  inevitable  in  one 
bom  and  bred  in  his  class.  Even  in  the  present  hour 
of  her  humiliation  and  despair,  our  accomplished  lady  had 
not  lost  her  power,  said  to  be  somewhat  rare  in  her  sex, 
of  impartial  reflection.  She  was  aware  that  Billy,  as  herself, 
her  husband,  her  kindred,  and  the  great  majority  of  the 
members  of  the  privileged  and  monied  classes  from  whom 
she  had  derived  her  education,  were  only  too  apt  to  play 
for  their  own  hands  entirely.  Full  many  an  instance  of 
an  almost  wolfish  self-centredness  had  she  found  in  her 
gilded  seminary.  At  times  she  had  been  amused  by  these 
earnest  self-seekers,  these  naif  worshippers  at  the  shrine  of 
self-interest  with  whom  it  had  been  her  lot  to  go  to  school. 
There  seemed  to  be  some  subtle  taint  in  the  atmosphere 
they  breathed.  It  was  only  to  be  expected  of  Billy,  who 
was  blood  of  their  blood,  who  had  been  imbued  with  their 
instincts,  nourished  on  their  religion,  reared  in  their 
milieu,  that  he  should  be  too  obsessed  by  his  own  imme- 
diate point  of  view  to  spare  a  thought  to  that  of  persons 
who  had  a  right  to  look  for  some  Httle  consideration  at  his 
hands.  She  had  the  strength  to  admit,  even  in  that  dark 
hour,  that  it  would  have  been  remarkable  had  it  been 
otherwise.  She  v/ould  not  blame  him  on  that  score.  The 
onus  lay  upon  the  class  into  which  he  had  been  bom.  It 
was  his  mad  infatuation,  his  desperate  folly,  for  which 
cheerfully  she  could  have  slain  him.  The  wretched  fellow 
did  not  even  make  the  excuse  that  he  had  acted  in  a 
moment  of  impulse  or  pique.  In  cold  blood,  in  his  right 
mind,  he  married  a  shop-girl,  and  he  boasted  of  it. 

"  May  I  ask,  my  precious,  what  you  propose  to  do 
with  your  wife,  now  you  have  married  her  ?  "  she  said  in 
the  voice  of  modulated  calm  she  had  used  from  the  be- 
ginning. 

"  T  don't  quite  know,  y'  know.  I  suppose  we  shall 
rub   along." 

l8o 


BROKE    OF    COVENDEN 

"  I  confess,  my  darling,  that  I  foresee  obstacles  rising 
in  your  path." 

"  I  was  afraid  there  might  be  one  or  two.  Have  you 
told  my  father  yet  ?  " 

"  I  have  not  told  him.  And  to  be  perfectly  candid  1 
hardly  dare  to  tell  him.  Unless  I  misjudge  your  father 
completely  he  will  make  a  tragedy  of  it," 

"  Yes,  he  has  the  reputation  of  being  an  eccentric  in 
some  things.  I  think.  Mummy,  it  may  be  wise  to  break 
the  news  to  him  a  bit." 

"  I  agree  with  you,  my  darling.  But  I  must  beg  you 
to  leave  the  matter  entirely  to  me.  We  must  not  act 
hastily.  Your  marriage  must  not  be  avowed  before  the 
chosen  season.  We  have  to  think  of  poor  Maud  as  well 
as  ourselves.  I  hardly  dare  to  contemplate  all  the  con- 
sequences. They  are  terrible,  my  pet.  I  must  have  time 
to  think  the  matter  out  at  my  leisure.  Do  not  speak  of 
it  to  any  one.  Our  social  credit  is  at  stake.  Something 
is  due  to  us  as  a  family.  Your  poor  sisters  may  be  pre- 
judiced. We  may  have  to  submit  to  derision.  I  must  charge 
you  to  absclnte  caution,  to  absolute  silence,  my  precious  ; 
you   must   place   yourself   in   my   hands   unreservedl}'." 

Our  young  gentleman  assented  with  a  slight  feeling  of 
relief.  He  was  not  so  far  gone  in  his  infatuation  as  to 
have  lost  entirely  his  sense  of  proportion.  He  foresaw 
that  it  would  be  a  bitter  pill  for  his  world  to  swallow.  He 
was  prompt  to  acquiesce  therefore  in  his  mother's  request. 
It  took  the  burden  of  a  somewhat  irksome  duty  from  his 
shoulders. 

He  could  not  help  admiring  his  mother.  She  might 
smile  forever  and  talk  in  dulcet  tones,  but  she  could  not 
wholly  deceive  him.  The  mask  of  a  winning  stoicism  she 
wore  habitually  could  not  avail  her.  He  knew  she  was 
badly  hit.  He  had  never  seen  a  better  piece  of  acting  than 
he  had  been  treated  to  in  his  interview  with  her  that 
afternoon.  It  was  no  mean  exhibition  of  the  art,  because  he 
guessed  that  she  had  been  knocked  about  rather  severely 
by  the  blow  he  had  dealt  her,  and  now,  however  com- 
posed she  might  appear,  she  was  really  shattered  and 
trembling  from  the  consequences  of  it,  and  was  bleeding 
fiercely  underneath  her  laugh. 

190 


L'EGOISME   A    DEUX 

"  1  must  write  to  your  wife  or  call  upon  her^  my  dear 
one.     Where  is  she  Uving  at  present  ?  " 

Billy  hesitated.     He  looked  at  his  mother  searchingly. 

"  Honest  Injun,  Mummy  !  You  can  be  trusted  with 
her  ?    She's  a  timid  Uttle  soul,  easily  upset.'* 

"  Yes,  my  darling,  you  can  trust  me." 

"  Well — er  if  you  must  know  the  address — er  is  17, 
Cromwell  Villas,  Hampden  Road,  London,  N." 

"  Write  it  down,  my  love." 

"  Here  is  a  business  card  with  it  printed  on  it.  She 
lives  with  an  aunt  who  is  a  dressmaker  or  something  of 
that  sort." 

Billy  took  out  his  cigarette-case,  and  selecting  from  it 
a  square  piece  of  cardboard,  not  particularly  clean,  with 
some  inferior  printing  in  a  large  type  upon  it,  gave  it  to 
his  mother.  .She  accepted  it  with  the  same  outward  com- 
posure, although  it  revolted  her  a  little  as  her  fingers 
touched  it. 

Sworn  to  perfect  secrecy,  Billy  presently  left  his  mother 
to  catch  his  train  to  Windsor.  Mrs.  Broke  having  decided 
to  remain  in  town  that  night,  sent  a  telegram  to  Covenden 
and  surrendered  herself  to  her  aching  thoughts.  She 
was  a  woman  of  courage,  but  as  she  sat  alone  in  that  huge 
drawing-room  lit  with  dim  lamps,  with  the  loneliness  and 
the  silence  emphasizing  the  frightened  beatings  of  her 
heart,  she  had  that  dull  sense  of  calamity  which  afflicts 
the  railway  passenger,  who  having  gone  to  sleep  in  the 
night  mail,  awakes  with  a  shock  to  find  himself  buried  in 
a  void  of  debris  and  darkness  and  the  cold  wind  freezing 
the  sweat  upon  his  face.  She  had  now  passed  from  the 
first  stage  of  semi-consciousness  of  this  poor  traveller  to 
one  of  a  slowly-maturing  sensibility  :  when  the  questions, 
"  Where  am  I  ?  What  has  happened  to  me  ?  "  have  given 
place  to  "  I  wonder  if  I  am  mortally  hurt ;  I  hope  there  is 
nothing  internal  ;  I  suppose  this  wet  stuff  trickling  into 
my  eyes  must  be  blood  !  "  Mrs.  Broke  now  knew  the 
nature  of  her  accident ;  she  was  occupied  in  trying  to 
find  out  just  what  her  injuries  were. 

This  she  could  not  do.  She  knew  positively  that  she 
was  severely  mauled  ;  she  felt  as  though  she  were  going 
to  die  ;  but  her  predicament  was  so  strange,  so  terrible 

191 


BROKE    OF    COVENDEN 

that  shp  could  not  say  what  the  immediate  future  had  in 
store.  Her  fine  scheme  for  the  restoration  of  their  for- 
tunes had  been  shattered  to  pieces  in  the  very  moment 
of  its  culmination.  She  had  been  congratulated ;  her 
wisdom  and  hei  cleverness  had  been  extolled ;  she  had 
been  the  object  of  envy  ;  but  as  she  had  raised  the  cup 
of  success  to  her  lips  it  had  been  wantonly  dashed  to  the 
ground  by  the  one  the  nearest,  the  dearest  to  her  in  the 
world. 

Even  that  act  she  might  have  forgiven  had  it  been  one 
of  impulse  ;  there  is  apparently  no  act  too  gross  or  too 
insane  to  be  unable  to  incur  the  pardon  of  the  human 
mother.  But  it  had  proved  to  be  a  calculated  blow  in 
which  her  son  exulted.  This  woman  he  had  married, 
this  nameless  person  whose  vocation  it  was  to  serve  behind 
the  counter  of  a  shop,  he  proposed  to  support  unrelent- 
ingly, and  vindicated  his  behaviour  by  assuring  her  that 
this  creature  alone  had  the  power  to  make  an  appeal  to 
his  nature. 

It  was  singular  that  young'  men  should  be  subject  to 
hallucinations  such  as  these.  Bitterly  she  recalled  the 
parallel  case  of  her  brother  Charles.  On  that  occasion 
his  friends  became  acquainted  in  time  of  his  infatuation, 
and  were  able  to  rescue  him  from  the  hands  of  the  vulgar 
and  unscrupulous  woman  who  had  hypnotized  him  with 
her  animal  beauty.  The  poor  mother  was  convinced  that 
precisely  the  same  thing  had  happened  to  her  boy,  only  in 
his  case  there  was  the  important  reservation  that  the 
gods  had  not  thought  fit  to  intervene.  As  usual  they 
were  on  the  side  of  the  big  battalions.  Charles's  family 
was  strong  enough  even  to  withstand  the  social  ruin  of  its 
eldest  son.  Billy's  was  not.  Be  sure  the  malicious  gods 
had  taken  those  facts  into  their  consideration  ! 

She  had  made  up  her  mind  already  that  the  young 
person  whose  dwelling-place  was  Cromwell  Villas,  Hamp- 
den Road,  London,  N.,  was  an  underbred  designing  little 
minx,  in  the  same  way  that  Miss  Maisie  Malone  had  proved 
to  be  a  flashy  and  rather  fat  vulgarian.  Howbeit  she 
would  go  and  see  for  herself.  Maimed  as  she  was  she  had 
still  enough  spirit  left  to  be  faintly  amused  at  Billy's 
solicitude  for  such  an  artful  little  wretch.      But  the  scales 

192 


L'EGOISME   A    DEUX 

had  njt  yet  dropped  from  the  eyes  of  the  unhappy  fellow. 
His  anxiety  for  the  fine  feelings  of  "  the  dearest  Uttle 
donah  in  the  world  "  would  have  been  perfect  comedy, 
however,  from  the  stalls  of  the  theatre.  Real  life,  it 
seemed,  was  still  our  only  dramatist.  She  laughed  a 
sorry  note  in  honour  of  the  mot.  Still  she  would  go  and 
see  for  herself.  For  she  still  clung  with  a  rather  frantic 
tenacity  to  her  last  straw,  an  impalpable  vague  ridiculous 
straw,  but  still  a  straw.  The  hope  was  still  faint  in  her 
that  the  creature  might  turn  out  to  be  the  adventuress 
with  the  husband  in  the  background,  although  that  be- 
longed rather  to  the  transpontine  stage.  Real  life,  how- 
ever, had  been  known  on  occasion  to  turn  its  hand  to 
melodrama.  But  her  hopes  in  that  direction  had  been 
weakened  already.  A  shop  girl  out  of  Bond  Street  is 
hardly  the  material  out  of  which  to  cut  your  true  ad- 
venturess. Doubtless  she  would  prove  to  be  a  creature 
of  a  hopeless  propriety.  Doubtless  she  was  ;  even  your 
very  young  men  are  content  with  a  liaison  with  the  other 
kind  ;  after  all  it  is  the  virtue  of  the  lower  classes  that 
provokes  the  unsophisticated  to  admit  them  into  the 
holy  temple  of  matrimony.  Without  their  virtue  they  had 
to  be  content  with  less.  Hence  their  proverb,  Honesty 
is  the  Best  Policy. 

Still  she  would  go  and  see  her.  She  was  under  a  pro- 
mise not  to  be  harsh  with  her,  not  to  make  her  pretty 
eyes  red.  Yes,  she  supposed  she  had  made  some  kind 
of  a  promise  ;  she  supposed,  therefore,  that  she  would 
have  to  keep  some  kind  of  a  curb  upon  herself — although 
it  was  not  easy  to  hurt  the  feelings  of  that  class.  She  was 
led  to  believe  there  was  only  one  word  in  the  range  of  the 
language  that  could  touch  them,  and  that  was  never  heard 
on  the  lips  of  a  virtuous  woman.  Still  she  was  not  sure 
that  she  might  not  know  how  to  make  her  wince  a  little. 
She  had  given  her  somewhat  loose  and  indefinite  promise 
to  Billy  ;  but  that  young  man  was  not  to  suppose  in  his 
strange  ignorance  of  human  nature  that  if  one  woman 
inflicts  an  injury  upon  another  woman,  the  victim  is  lightly 
to  be  dissuaded  from  retaliation. 

Fortunately  the  musings  of  the  galled  and  suffering 
lady  were  interrupted  at   this  point.     Her   sister   Mary 

T93  N 


BROKE    OF    COVENDEN 

flounced  into  the  room,  an  emanation  of  rustles  and  odours. 
She  came  in  marvellously  spick  and  span,  and  quite  un- 
daunted in  energy,  although  during  the  day  she  had  opened 
three  bazaars  in  outlying  parts  of  the  vast  metropolis, 
presided  at  the  half-yearly  administration  of  the  Fund 
for  Providing  Distressed  Society  Women  with  Tiaras, 
and  had  presently  to  go  out  to'  dine  with  a  duke  at  the 
Carlton  Hotel.  Her  appearance  suggested  that  of  an 
actress  of  an  inferior  rank,  who  covers  the  retreat  of 
her  pristine  freshness  with  enamel  and  rose  pink. 

"  Hullo,  my  sister,"  she  shouted  at  the  top  of  a  voice 
that  was  not  altogether  pleasant.  "  You  here !  Two 
cups.  Aha,  a  man  to  tea  !  Fie  upon  you,  you  skittish 
matron.  Glad  I  was  out.  Sorry  I  came  back.  Hope  I  did 
not  disturb  you.  Are  these  the  legs  of  a  man  I  see  before 
me  protruding  from  under  the  sofa  ?  No ;  only  my 
romantic  fancy.  I  wonder,  sister,  if  I  ever  shall  get  rid 
of  my  eternal  youth  !  " 

"  I  think,  my  dear,  you  may  hope  in  time  sufficiently 
to  conceal  it,"  said  Mrs.  Broke,  purring  with  placidity. 

"  Ha  !  you  darling  old  cat,  you  keep  your  claws  as 
sharp  as  ever.  What's  your  game  now  ?  Money,  sordid 
humiliating  pelf ;  or  has  Juno  come  to  ask  Minerva, 
'  What  Shall  We  Do  With  Our  Daughters  ? '  Were  you 
the  '  Materf amilias '  who  started  the  correspondence  in  the 
Daily  Telegraph  ?  " 

"  No,  my  dear,  but  I  think  if  I  chose  I  could  furnish 
the  name  of  the  '  Constant  Reader '  who  started  the  one 
before,  '  What  Shall  We  Do  With  Our  Husbands  ?  ' " 

"  It  is  no  good,  sister,  I  shall  not  compete.  You  are  too 
quick.     When  is  Billy  going  to  be  spliced  ?  " 

"  Nothing  is  settled  yet." 

"  High  time  isn't  it  ?  The  thing  has  been  lagging 
superfluous  for  at  least  a  month.  I  saw  the  hero  at  the 
Troc.  the  other  night  after  the  play.  He  was  not  aggres- 
sively sober.  A  gilt  mug  laid  me  five  to  four  in  ponies 
that  he  would  be  another  Charles.  I  took  him  on  the 
nail  ;  they  don't  know  the  mamma  of  ce  preux  chevalier, 
do  they  ?  How  much  is  the  Fair  Persian  worth — three 
millions  or  two  ?  A  nice  domesticated  creature  with  no 
expensive  tastes,  I  understand.     Our  hero,  straight  out  of 

194 


L'EGOISME   A    DEUX 

Ouida  though  he  be,  will  never  be  able  to  spend  all  that 
on  polo  ponies.  How  will  he  be  able  to  dispose  of  it  ? 
Can  you  tell  me,  my  sister  ?  I  suppose  numerous  charities 
will  benefit." 

"  I  refer  you  to  Reginald,  my  dear.  He  sits  at  the  feet 
of  the  Chancellor  of  the  Exchequer.  I  do  not  pretend  to 
a  knowledge  of  finance." 

"  Ha,  there  you  go  again  !  I  don't  know  when  I  have 
known  your  claws  so  sharp,  you  funny  old  thing.  Still 
it  was  a  bit  below  the  belt.  But  really,  darling,  I  must 
hit  somebody.     I  am  in  a  frightful  temper." 

"  Quarter  day  ?  " 

"  Not  at  all." 

"  The  horrid  Mr.  Samuel  Moses  refuses  to  defer  his  bill 
of  sale  ?  " 

"  How  did  you  guess  ?  " 

"  Intuition,  my  dear — the  feminine  prerogative." 

"  Well,  you  are  right  off  it.  No,  the  fact  is  I  have 
been  having  a  lot  of  bad  luck  lately." 

"  Baccarat  ?  " 

"  Bookies.  I  have  forsaken  the  sport  of  princes  for 
the  sport  of  kings.  I  don't  know  when  I  have  been  so 
angry.  I  had  the  dead  straight  from  Harry  to  back 
Parable  for  the  Nash  at  lOO  to  8.  I  wired  to  my  bookie, 
but  got  a  bit  mixed  in  the  code.  Parable  rolled  home 
allright  in  the  commonest,  but  Bookie  repudiates,  and 
refuses  point  blank  to  tip  up  the  spondulicks.  What  would 
you  do,  darling  ?     You  have  a  reputation  for  wisdom." 

"  I  confess,  my  dear,  that  your  conversation  is  too 
technical  to  be  followed  except  by  the  expert.  You  out- 
Charles  our  poor  dear  Charles.  Do  I  understand  you  to 
refer  to  the  Turf  ?  " 

"  Alas,  my  sister,  I  see  you  are  in  no  mood  to  humour 
my  frailties.  And  I  am  so  cross.  I  mentioned  it  to  old 
Justice  Sharp  last  night.  He  said  that  if  I  went  to  law, 
and  the  judge  happened  to  be  unusually  young  or  un- 
usually senile,  and  I  wore  my  new  thing  of  Raquin's, 
a  pork  pie  shape,  trimmed  with  green  mousseline  de  soie, 
out  of  which  issue  a  pair  of  crushed-strawberry-coloured 
turtle  doves  rampant,  from  a  pale  yellow  ground  slightly 
erased,  which  he  had  already  had  occasion  to  admire,  I 

195 


BROKE    OF  COVENDEN 

might  get  my  case,  always  providing  that  the  judge  was 
not  a  naturalist.  In  that  event,  he  said,  I  should  be 
committed  for  contempt  and  get  six  months." 

"  When  does  Reginald  introduce  his  bill,  my  dear,  for 
the  Suppression  of  Judicial  Humour  ?  " 

"  How  I  wish,  my  sister,  that  you  would  keep  King 
Charles's  head  out  of  your  conversation !  But  I  don't 
want  to  drag  Bookie  to  a  court  of  law  ;  you  are  acquainted, 
darUng,  with  my  horror  of  publicity.  Besides,  if  I  did, 
it's  a  thousand  to  five,  to  lay  Charles's  favoufite  odds, 
that  the  Religious  Rumtefoozleum  and  the  Noncon- 
formist What-you-call-it  would  not  let  me  open  any 
more  bazaars.  Really  lonely  women  in  the  vast  metropolis 
cannot  be  too  careful.  Oh,  by  the  way,  I  must  thank 
you  so  much  for  your  tip  about  Mars  and  Jupiter  Railways 
that  you  had  from  that  Salmon  man,  your  neighbour. 
So  thoughtful  of  you.  That  fish  is  quite  an  original.  I 
hear  he  is  absolutely  straight.  Oh,  and  tell  me,  my  sister, 
what  is  this  about  our  dear  old  Mun,  our  dear  stiff-backed, 
blue-blooded,  simple-minded,  penny-noveletteish  feudal 
baron  about  to  become  a  guinea  pig  !  When  I  saw  his 
name  in  the  prosjjcctus  in  the  Times  this  morning,  with 
only  two  of  his  initials  wrong,  I  thought  I  should  have 
perished.  A  sordid  age,  my  dear.  E.  W.  A.  C.  B.  Broke, 
Esq.,  J. P.,  D.L.,  Covenden,  Parkshire,  gentleman.  A 
sordid  age.  I  suppose  all  his  ancestors  have  turned  in 
their  tombs  in  Covenden  church  already.  I  suppose  the 
Broke  ghost  is  walking  in  the  east  wing,  a  la  that 
friend  of  my  youth,  dear  Mrs.  Henry  Wood.  It  makes  one 
sliudder,  yet  I  protest  there  is  a  touch  of  the  sublime. 
Poor  dear  old  I\Iun  ;  and  they  say  this  is  not  ah  age  of 
heroes !  King  Romance  has  come  again  indeed.  I 
have  sent  that  prospectus  to  be  framed.  It  marks  an 
epoch.  The  old  order  not  only  changes,  it  wipes  itself 
out.  And  so  fell  Broke  of  Covenden  and  with  him  the  race 
of  England's  gentlemen  ! 

"  How  is  our  dear  old  Charley  one  ?  I  haven't  seen 
him  for  an  age.  Please  give  him  my  love,  and  tell  him 
that  the  last  keg  of  whisky  he  sent  poisoned  the  house- 
keeper's cat.  Tell  him  Mountain  Mist's  the  tipple.  Ask 
him  to  mention  my  name,  and  to  give  an  order  to  Johnson, 

196 


L'EGOISME    A    DEUX 

Boswell  an.l  Scott,  Carlyle  Yard,  Bermondsey.  You  had 
better  not  tell  him,  though  my  sister,  that  I  have  a 
twenty-five  per  cent,  commission  on  every  order  that  I 
place,  or  he  will  be  demanding  discount.  And  how  are 
the  '  little  chestnut  fillies '  ?  Are  they  as  fond  of  bacon, 
and  as  lean  and  as  leggy,  and  as  nosey  and  as  elbowy,  and 
as  haughty  and  as  inane,  and  as  bucolic  and  as  aristocratic, 
and  as  utterly  impossible  as  ever  ?  And  how  is  our 
dear  authoress  ?  I  haven't  read  her  latest  work  as  yet,  but 
I  bought  one  at  the  Stores  and  presented  it  to  my  latest 
royal  pal.  His  Serene  Highness  the  Hereditary  Grand 
Duke  of  Hochanseltzer.  I  gave  it  to  him  for  its  moral 
teaching.  He  is  a  wonderfully  susceptible  young  man. 
He  is  tickled  to  death  by  the  moral  tone.  He  has  quite 
given  up  his  old  habit  of  making  sans  atout  on  the  jack  of 
diamonds  and  the  queen  of  hearts.  He  says  it  is  superb  ; 
it  is  magnificent ;  it  is  ze  expression  of  a  spirit.  I  told 
him  that  there  was  not  much  moral  tone  to  speak  of  in  our 
family,  but  what  there  was  we  liked  the  world  to  know 
about.  When  you  see  the  dear  authoress  give  her,  in  my 
name,  a  kiss  of  sisterly  affection  upon  the  white  enamel  of 
her  intellectual  brows.  But  I  chatter,  darling,  and  I 
must  really  go  and  dress.  I  fear  you  will  have  to  dine 
alone.  Reginald,  of  course,  is  much  too  busy  propping 
up  the  Empire  to  come  away  as  far  as  Hill  Street.  You  see 
if  he  once  removed  his  shoulders  from  beneath  the  British 
Constitution  down  would  fall  the  whole  massive  structure 
and  plunge  millions  into  death  and  ruin,  vide  his  speech 
in  the  House  on  Tuesday.  It  is  rather  a  responsibility 
for  the  poor  dear,  isn't  it  ?  I  do  hope  his  dear  health  will 
not  break  down  beneath  the  strain.  Fancy  having  to 
support  it  alone  and  unaided  on  his  own  dear  shoulders, 
day  after  day,  3'ear  after  year.  It  is  like  the  solar  system  ; 
the  imagination  reels.  Samson,  Hercules  and  Reginald 
will  be  the  three  strong  men  of  history,  with  long  odds  on 
Reginald.  The  dear  devoted  fellow,  to  think  that  this 
pillar  of  the  Government  has  not  left  the  post  of  duty  for 
thirteen  3'ears  even  to  come  and  see  his  wife  !  But  so  long, 
my  sister.  I  must  go  really.  I  mustn't  keep  Harry 
waiting.  He  is  too  expensive.  I  pay  him  so  much  an 
hour  to  take  me  about,  like  my  cook  pays  her  guardsman." 

f97 


BROKE   OF   COVENDEN 

The  volatile  lady,  who  had  not  ceased  in  her  monologue 
from  the  time  she  arrived  to  the  time  she  departed,  ulti- 
mately did  so  after  a  sojourn  of  half  an  hour,  to  the  great 
relief  of  poor  Mrs.  Broke. 

"  Cocaine,"  murmured  our  unfortunate  lady,  as  the 
door  closed  upon  her.  "  If  poor  Mary  is  not  soon  im- 
mured in  an  asylum  I  fear  she  will  lower  the  standard  of  the 
national  sanity.  Poor  dear  Charles  is  bad  enough ;  but 
cocaine  is  much  more  deadly  than  whiskey." 


198 


CHAPTER  XVI 
The  Nobleman  out  of  the   Novelette 

NO.  17,  Cromwell  Villas,  Hampden  Road,  N.,  had  one 
of  those  exteriors  that  brings  home  to  the  passer-by 
the  bleak  mockery  of  life.  There  was  nothing  to  recom- 
mend it  from  without.  There  was  nothing  to  suggest 
why  any  human  creature  should  inhabit  it,  unless  by  force 
of  need.  It  was  common,  it  was  ugly,  it  was  unclean  ; 
it  was  situated  in  the  heart  of  a  neighbourhood  that  had 
not  even  the  spirit  to  make  an  attempt  at  pretending  to 
be  what  it  was  not.  There  was  nothing  in  or  about  it  to 
relieve  its  repulsiveness.  Nothing  could  put  a  gloss  on 
the  squalor  by  which  it  was  surrounded,  the  hopelessness 
by  which  it  was  debased  ;  soap  and  water  and  the  parish 
vestry  had  given  up  the  attempt.  It  is  a  sardonic  fancy 
in  the  architect  of  these  dwellings  to  enclose  a  piece  of 
earth  a  few  square  inches  in  diameter  in  the  front  of  each. 
What  purpose  such  an  enclosure  serves  it  is  hard  to  tell,  un- 
less it  is  to  enable  each  house  to  stand  in  its  own  grounds. 
Or  it  may  be  a  concession  to  our  deep-rooted  English 
passion  for  possession.  The  tenant  may  feel  that  the 
grimy  patch  is  his  own  piece  of  arable,  a  square  yard  of 
territory  off  which  he  can  order  the  policeman  himself, 
should  he  presume  to  trespass.  May  he  not  even  erect 
a  notice  to  that  tenour  ?  The  indulgence  may  be  his  of 
"  Trespassers  Will  Be  Prosecuted,"  so  dear  to  the  British 
landowner. 

Again,  the  architect  may  be  one  of  a  sombre  imagination, 
a  symboHst  who  seeks  to  strike  the  analogy  between  these 
patches  of  sterility  and  the  neighbourhood  in  which  they 
are  laid.    Never  are  they  green  or  fruitful.     Choked  with 

190 


BROKE    OF    COVENDEN 

grime  and  refuse,  they  stand  congealed  and  foul  and  peren- 
nially bare.  Nothing  fresh,  nothing  beautiful,  nothing 
reasonably  fair  can  hope  there  to  raise  its  head.  The  dog 
leaves  his  bone  there  ;  the  slatternly  servant-girl,  the 
"  slavey  "  of  the  true  genus,  bestrews  it  with  ashes  and 
herring  bones,  and  the  leaves  of  decomposing  cabbages. 

The  sun,  a  compassionate  agent  in  other  districts, 
refuses  to  extend  its  beneficence  to  Hampden  Road, 
London,  N.  The  less  light  by  which  there  is  to  view  its 
details,  the  less  unhappy  does  it  appear.  Look  where 
you  chose,  and  poverty,  squalor,  sullenness  and  mean 
misery  would  confront  you.  If  by  a  remote  chance  the 
eye  was  arrested  by  a  faint  attempt  to  achieve  something 
a  little  worthier  in  the  shape  of  a  whitened  doorstep,  an 
unbroken  knocker,  an  uncracked  window,  a  pair  of  curtains 
without  a  remarkable  number  of  holes,  or  a  pair  bearing 
the  suggestion  of  having  been  washed  within  the  memory 
of  a  man,  it  was  revolted  by  the  nude  relief  in  which  it 
threw  adjacent  objects.  It  was  not  for  individual  effort  to 
enhance  or  alleviate  ;  it  was  overwhelmed  by  the  spirit  of 
environment.  Where  is  the  hope  for  those  who  dwell  in 
these  vast  unexplored  areas,  dark  and  quick  with  every 
form  of  life  and  every  form  of  foulness  where  every  second 
house  is  a  brothel,  and  every  third  a  gin  shop,  where  disease 
and  want  herd  like  flies  in  dung,  and  seek  by  their  sombre 
orgies  to  evoke  forgetfulness  ? 

No.  17,  Cromwell  Villas,  was  in  the  middle  of  a  row  of 
twenty  similar  tenements.  Conceivably  it  might  have 
bewildered  the  observing  passer-by  with  its  claims  to 
distinction.  It  bore  upon  the  face  of  it  quite  a  melancholy 
number  of  attempts  to  achieve  the  respectable.  Its  door- 
step, its  front  parlour  window,  and  its  curtains  came  as 
near  to  cleanliness  as  the  exigencies  of  a  street  permitted 
in  which  the  sun  itself  was  a  ball  of  grime.  There  was  also 
a  bundle  of  flowers  in  a  china  cup  standing  in  the  window. 
In  that  locality  they  looked  as  phenomenal  as  a  chip  of 
blue  sky  protruding  through  a  London  fog.  There  was 
the  inevitable  card  in  the  window,  to  be  sure,  but  instead 
of  bearing  the  legend  "  Apartments,"  it  said,  "  Miss 
Sparrow,  dressmaker." 

Two  women  were  seated  behind  this  card  on  a  bitterly 
200 


THE  NOBLEMAN  OF  THE  NOVELETTE 

cold  morning  in  the  middle  of  April.  One  was  old,  wdth 
grey  hair  almost  white  and  very  sparse.  By  careful 
arrangement  it  was  made  the  most  of.  She  herself  was 
very  meagre  ;  she  also  had  a  far-away  air  of  being  made 
the  most  of.  She  was  thin,  flat,  and  narrow,  with  something 
a  little  formal  in  her  demeanour,  as  one  whose  self-con- 
sciousness is  not  even  yet  merged  in  her  years.  Her  black 
dress  was  old  and  primitive,  but  evidences  were  not  wanting 
in  it  of  a  desire  for  propriety.  Her  face  was  peaked  and 
shrivelled  like  a  piece  of  yellow  parchment.  It  was  a 
commonplace,  a  wholly  commonplace  face,  transfigured 
with  a  certain  harshness,  the  outward  and  visible  sign  of 
a  lifelong  struggle  with  its  destiny. 

If  the  wearer  of  the  face  had  ever  been  able  to  hold  it  up 
in  the  grim  battle,  it  might  have  been  less  unsatisfactory 
to  look  upon.  If  a  breath  of  honest  sunshine,  of  pure  air, 
had  been  allowed  to  touch  it  now  and  then  ;  had  the  dress 
been  reasonably  new,  or  even  had  it  had  a  reasonable 
number  of  threads  in  it ;  had  there  been  some  slight 
feminine  accessories  to  soften  the  bareness  of  the  throat ; 
if  the  hourly  struggle  for  a  loaf  of  bread  and  two  ounces 
of  tea,  a  roof  and  a  bag  of  coals  could  have  been  put  by 
for  a  single  week  ;  if  the  wearer  of  the  face  could  have  been 
made  to  understand  that  life  itself  did  not  wholly  depend 
on  those  half-blind  and  hopeless  eyes,  on  those  coarse  and 
weary  fingers,  on  those  stiff  and  attenuated  limbs,  on 
the  eternal  plying  of  needles  and  scissors  from  the  first 
thread  of  light  in  the  morning  to  the  last  gutter  of  the 
candle  at  night,  her  portrait,  debased  and  unprepossessing 
as  it  is,  yet  might  not  have  looked  quite  so  egregious  in  our 
gallery  of  the  fair,  the  exalted,  the  wise,  the  kindly,  the " 
witty,  and  the  well  bred. 

The  other  woman  was  much  younger  :  a  girl.  Like  the 
flowers  in  the  cracked  cup  in  the  window,  she  had  the  air 
of  being  a  phenomenon  in  Hampden  Road.  Even  in  the 
grim  purlieus  of  mid-London  it  seems  that  the  supernatural 
occurs  more  frequently  than  you  would  think.  She  also 
was  thin  and  slight ;  it  might  have  been  the  thinness  that 
does  not  get  enough  to  eat  ;  she  also  was  dressed  in  severe 
black  raiment,  but  distinctly  less  primitive  in  style  and 
texture  than  that  of  the  elder  woman,  for  about  every  inch 

201 


BROKE    OF    COVENDEN 

of  her  was  the  ineffable  neatness  of  the  London  shop- 
girl. 

She  may  have  been  beautiful  or  she  may  not,  but  her 
face  was  of  a  very  delicate,  poignant,  arresting  kind.  And 
in  any  case  she  was  sufficiently  picturesque.  It  was  the 
glamour  of  youth  that  depends  on  vivid  colouring,  the 
sheen  of  the  hair,  the  pursed  cherry-ripe  look  of  the  lips, 
the  fresh  clean  look  of  the  skin,  the  extreme  candour  of  the 
eyes,  that  may  even  grow  up  in  Cromwell  Villas,  but  does 
not  stay  there  long.  She  could  have  sat  for  the  picture  of 
Youth ;  and  all  who  were  not  insensible  to  perfect  simplicity 
and  perfect  innocence  would  have  said  she  was  as  good  to 
look  at  as  a  Greuze.  A  year  hence  might  prove  another 
matter  ;  but  as  yet  she  was  absolutely  fair.  The  canker 
of  toil,  endless  and  unremitting,  had  yet  to  defile  her. 
The  hourly  struggle  against  starvation,  that  haunting 
monster,  had  yet  to  sully  her  radiance  with  the  degrada- 
tion of  its  claws. 

The  two  women  were  talking  excitedly,  but  at  the 
same  time  both  unceasingly  plied  needle,  scissors,  and 
thread.  They  were  conversing  this  morning  with  something 
of  the  feverish  energy  with  which  they  toiled.  For  a  week 
past  they  had  been  Uving  in  the  realm  of  faery.  A  touch 
of  very  strange  but  very  real  romance  had  been  insinuated 
into  the  lives  of  aunt  and  niece — lives  which  since  each  had 
been  endowed  therewith  had  never  varied  in  monotony. 
They  were  trying  now  to  trace  clearly  the  course  of  recent 
events,  and  to  realize  exactly  what  they  impHed.  At 
present,  however,  excited,  incredulous,  astonished  as  they 
were,  they  were  too  bewildered  by  them  to  be  able  so  to  do. 
Ko  matter  how  hard  they  rubbed  their  eyes  they  could  not 
convince  themselves  that  they  were  really  awake.  Three 
tangible  evidences  had  they  to  go  upon,  however.  Alice 
had  a  wedding  ring  on  her  finger,  a  five  pound  note  in  her 
purse,  and  she  had  given  up  her  situation. 

Aunt  and  niece  were  in  a  condition  of  deliciously  vague 
excitement,  like  that  of  a  child  when  it  hears  a  knock  upon 
the  nursery  door,  and  is  informed  that  it  is  a  bear.  They 
were  rather  too  frightened  to  be  wholly  happy,  yet  they 
were  much  too  happy  to  be  really  frightened.  The  thing 
itself  was  most  exquisite  matter  of  fact,  yet  it  out-Family^ 

202 


THE  NOBLEMAN  OF  THE  NOVELETTE 

Heralded  the  Family  Herald.  To  them  of  all  people,  to 
them  in  their  mundane  sphere,  to  them  in  the  unvarying 
monotony  of  their  daily  Uves,  when  the  only  adventures 
they  had  in  the  course  of  a  year  were  the  weekly  ones  with 
the  landlord,  King  Romance  had  stepped  directly  out  of 
his  novelette,  and  had  come  ruffling  it  with  a  carol  on  his 
lips  and  a  most  beautiful  insolent  swagger,  to  No.  17,  Croiji- 
well  Villas,  Hampden  Road. 

How  he  had  chosen  to  hit  on  that  exact  number  was 
altogether  beyond  them.  Why  had  he  not  gone  to  No.  15 
or  No.  19,  both  very  nice  and  worthy  people  ;  whatever 
had  put  it  into  his  head  to  come  there  ?  If  he  had  not  been 
the  real  King  Romance  of  which  they  had  read,  if  he  had 
been  some  plausible  impostor  masquerading  in  a  court 
uniform  for  base  and  ulterior  purposes,  they  could  have 
understood  it.  Their  anxiety  and  incredulity  would  not 
have  been  so  extreme.  Impostors  are  supposed  to  be 
common  ;  but  there  is  only  one  real  King.  And  why  that 
one  authentic  dazzling  young  monarch  should  have  hit  on 
No.  17  exactly,  no  more  nor  no  less,  but  just  that  number, 
must  remain  a  mystery  and  one  of  the  most  wonderful 
things  ever  known. 

"  You  see,  my  dear,"  said  the  aunt,  picking  the  stitches 
out  of  a  bodice  while  her  dim  eyes  bent  lower  and  lower  to 
her  work  ;  "you  see,  my  dear,  it  would  not  put  me  about 
so  if  he  was  not  a  perfect  gentleman.  Do  what  you  will 
you  can't  help  noticing  that." 

"  No,  auntie,  you  can't,"  said  her  niece  with  a  beating 
heart. 

She  was  heating  an  iron  at  the  fire. 

"  It  is  just  that  which  has  upset  me  so,"  said  the  aunt. 
"  WTien  he  knocked  at  the  door,  and  I  went  to  open  it 
just  as  I  am  now,  with  all  these  bits  on  my  dress  ;  and 
there  he  was  standing  on  the  doorstep  that  I  hadn't  had 
time  to  clean,  and  he  says  '  Miss  Sparrow,'  you  could  have 
knocked  me  down  with  a  feather.  Of  course,  my  dear, 
you  had  said  all  along  he  was  a  perfect  gentleman  ;  and 
you  will  remember  that  I  said  that  if  that  was  so  you  must 
be  all  the  more  careful,  because  the  more  perfect  the 
gentleman  the  less  a  young  girl  ought  to  put  her  trust 
in  him.     The  likes  of  them  are  not  in  the  habit  of  con- 

203 


BROKE    OF    COVENDEN 

descending  to  the  likes  of  us  unless  they  are  going  to  get 
something  by  it.  Those  were  my  very  words.  And  those 
are  my  words  still." 

"  But  I  am  married,  auntie,  now,"  said  the  girl. 

"  You  are,  my  dear,  and  that  is  just  what  makes  every- 
thing so  unreal.  If  he  were  not  just  what  he  is,  it  would 
be  more  natural.  Even  when  you  came  home  and  spoke 
about  him  first  I  never  thought  he  was  one  of  that  sort. 
Why  he  might  have  been  a  young  earl  the  way  he  stood 
there  with  his  hat  off  and  talked  so  grand  and  simple  and 
so  mannerly.  I  never  saw  any  one  look  the  part  so  much 
as  he  does  ;  and  besides  if  you  never  saw  him  at  all,  you 
would  know  what  he  was  if  only  you  heard  his  beautiful 
voice.  He  can't  help  being  a  gentleman.  It  is  born  in 
him  just  as  it  is  born  in  that  cat  to  walk  stately.  It  is 
not  a  diamond  pin  and  a  gold  watch  chain  with  him.  You 
can't  even  bring  your  mind  to  such  things  when  he  is 
talking  to  you.  You  don't  know  whether  he  wears  them 
or  not,  and,  my  dear,  you  don't  care.  I  could  not  tell  you 
now  he  was  dressed,  although  I  am  sure  his  shirt  and  his 
collar  must  have  been  got  up  at  one  of  those  patent  steam 
laundries.  You  could  not  possibly  get  them  up  at  home 
as  well  as  that." 

"  No,  auntie,  dear,  I  don't  suppose  you  could,"  said  her 
niece,  smiling  gravely. 

"  Do  you  know,  my  dear,"  continued  the  older  woman 
a  little  ecstatically,  "  he  made  me  think  of  the  Duke  of 
Grandchester  that  the  Lady  Gwendolen  married  in  that 
beautiful  story  in  the  Family  Herald  Supplement.  Do  you 
remember  that  it  said,  '  the  Duke  had  the  grand  manner 
peculiar  to  dukes  '  ?  Well,  my  dear,  that  is  what  Mr. 
Broke  made  me  think  of.  I  am  sure  the  author  must  have 
rnpied  him  when  he  wrote  that.  I  have  never  known 
before  just  what  the  '  grand  manner  '  meant ;  but  I  think 
I  do  now.  And  that  is  why  I  am  so  afraid.  I  never 
slept  at  all  last  night  for  thinking  of  you.  Everything 
seems  so  unnatural  when  you  come  to  think  about  it  as 
you  lie  in  bed.  It  seems  too  much  like  a  story  ;  but  I 
have  read  it  somewhere  that  truth  is  stranger  than  fiction. 
And  so  it  is,  my  dear,  so  it  is.  if  all  that  has  happened  to 
us  is  actually  true  !      But  nobody  can  deny  that  it  was  a 

204 


THE  NOBLEMAN  OF  THE  NOVELETTE 

real  church  at  which  you  were  married ;  I  am  sure  it 
was  a  real  clergyman  of  the  Church  of  England,  and 
he  had  such  a  kind  face  ;  and  with  my  own  eyes  I  saw 
you  and  Mr.  Broke  sign  your  names  in  the  marriage 
register." 

"  Yes,  yes,  auntie,  you  did,"  said  her  niece  eagerly. 
"  It  must  all  be  perfectly  real,  although  you  can't  get  over 
the  feeling  that  it  is  just  like  a  fairy  tale.  Perhaps  I  am 
Cinderella  with  a  fairy  godmother  that  I  do  not  know  about. 
Fairy  godmothers  always  make  these  things  happen,  don't 
they  ?  In  any  case  here  is  the  wedding  ring,  auntie,  and 
if  you  hold  the  five  pound  note  up  to  the  light,  you  can  see 
the  watermark  in  it." 

The  girl  laughed  nervously,  but  joyfully.  She,  too,  was 
afraid  ;  but  her  fear  was  of  a  kind  that  gave  a  keener 
savour  to  her  delirious  happiness.  After  all  it  was  no  more 
than  a  touch  of  sharpness  that  made  it  linger  on  the  tongue. 
Come  what  might,  no  one  could  gainsay  that  tbey  belonged 
to  one  another,  that  they  were  man  and  wife.  No  one  could 
deny  the  sacred,  the  inviolable  tie  that  bound  them 
together  ;  nothing  could  rob  her  of  the  exquisite  emotion 
of  pride,  of  gratitude,  of  joy,  that  the  contemplation  of  the 
fact  had  given. 

"  He  says  he  will  introduce  you  to  what  he  calls  '  his 
people  '  as  soon  as  he  can,"  said  the  aunt.  "  And  I  am  not 
sure,  dearie,  that  I  shall  not  be  a  little  easier  in  my  mind 
when  he  has  done  that.  He  did  not  say  much  about  them, 
but  I  could  tell  that  they  were  very  grand  folks,  and  proud 
too.  But,  of  course,  they  must  be,  or  he  would  not  belong 
to  them.  How  I  should  hke  to  see  his  mother  !  What  a 
beautiful  and  kind  and  grand  lady  she  must  be  !  I  am 
sure  his  people,  whoever  they  are,  must  be  just  like  him. 
They  must  all  be  perfect  ladies  and  gentlemen,  and  all  very 
handsome  and  mannerly.  He  must  have  had  a  wonderful 
mother  ;  a  real  countess  or  a  duchess,  or  perhaps,  even  a 
marchioness.  For  there  is  nothing  shoddy  or  imitation 
about  him,  is  there  ?  You  can  see  what  in  others  you  might 
think  to  be  airs  come  quite  natural  to  him.  And  so  simple 
as  he  is  with  it  all.  He  must  know  all  those  grand  people 
in  the  West  End,  but  do  you  know,  my  dear,  I  never  heard 
him  mention  them  once.     I  wish  that  Mrs.  West  at  No.  23 

20  n 


BROKE    OF    COVENDEN 

could  see  him  ;  she  never  opens  her  mouth  but  out  comes 

her  uncle  the  vestryman.  He  does  not  make  the  least 
parade  of  his  M^ealth  or  his  gentility.  When  you  get  over 
the  first  shock  of  finding  that  you  are  talking  to  him,  it  is 
just  as  easy  as  it  is  to  speak  to  the  milkman.  Why,  he  sat 
down  at  this  very  table  and  took  a  cup  of  tea.  And  would 
you  believe,  my  dear,  that  when  it  came  to  putting  sugar 
in  it,  he  put  in  two  lumps  with  his  fingers  quite  simply 
and  naturally.  I  do  wish  that  Mrs.  West  could  have  seen 
him." 

Billy's  wife  laughed  joyfully  again.  Her  simple  old 
aunt  had  been  singing  his  praises  in  this  childlike  manner 
for  two  days.  There  was  no  keeping  her  from  the  delicious 
topic,  nor  did  she  seek,  for  it  was  poetry  and  music  to 
them  both.  To  every  word  uttered  by  her  aunt  she  could 
subscribe.  She  was  too  much  at  the  mercy,  however,  of 
the  wild  riot  of  happiness  that  was  in  her  blood,  that  every 
now  and  then  sent  it  racing  and  tingling  to  her  temples, 
and  singing  in  her  excited  brain,  to  be  able  to  translate  her 
own  feelings  into  language.  Also  perchance  she  deferred 
to  the  instinct  of  reticence,  for  it  hardly  became  one 
who  was  officially  his  wife  to  lay  bare  her  thoughts  in 
these  unguarded  terms.  All  the  same  no  praise  of  him  was 
too  extravagant  for  her  to  hear  ;  no  eulogium  could  be 
passed  upon  him  that  he  did  not  merit.  His  voice,  his  air, 
his  noble  person  were  things  all  equally  radiant,  all  equally 
lovely  and  fair.  She  had  seen  a  good  deal  more  of  the 
exterior  life  than  her  aunt,  that  childlike  old  creature 
who  had  passed  her  years  of  unremitting  toil  in  a  world 
of  her  own,  a  world  peopled  with  the  phantom  figures  of 
her  fancy,  coloured  with  her  own  ideals  of  conduct,  and  the 
glamour  that  haunts  the  fastnesses  of  faery,  yet,  at  the 
same  time,  subject  to  the  peculiar  conventions  of  her  own 
trite  point  of  view.  Even  a  child  cannot  spend  eighteen 
months  in  a  shop  in  Bond  Street  without  being  brought  to 
view  the  life  by  which  she  is  oppressed  with  slightly  less 
distorted  eves. 

She  had  been  bred  in  that  exotic  atmosphere  of  the  fancy 
in  wiiich  all  her  life  her  aunt  had  Hved.  But  even  she 
could  not  touch  shoulders  with  reality  in  a  West  End 
shop  without  having  some  of  the  sense  of  wonder  rubbed 

206 


THE  NOBLEMAN  OF  THE  NOVELETTE 

off  her  that  the  rich  people  of  those  parts  inspired  in  the 
elder  woman.  Her  worsliip  of  Billy  therefore  was  a  trifle 
more  educated.  She  had  not  quite  the  same  grotesque 
awe  for  the  signs  manual  of  gentility  as  had  that  doting 
old  creature  who,  condemned  from  her  birth  to  squalor, 
privation,  and  toil,  had  yet  all  the  instincts,  the  little 
ineffable  refinements  of  a  nature's  gentlewoman  lurking 
in  the  stagnant  recesses  of  her  heart.  However,  for  the 
girl  to  find  in  a  lover  such  rare,  such  surprising  attributes, 
was  enough  to  provoke  her  reverence  and  her  gratitude. 
The  superficial  polish  of  her  husband  dazzled  her  as  com- 
pletely as  the  shining  qualities  of  his  mind  and  heart  as 
depicted  in  the  glowing  tones  of  her  maiden  fancy.  Those 
who  prostrate  themselves  before  the  gods  may  worship 
their  immortality,  but  it  is  not  to  be  supposed  that  they  are 
not  also  held  in  thrall  by  their  splendid  bearing  and 
demeanour. 

The  older  woman,  deep  down  in  her  heart,  might  tremble 
for  the  permanence  of  this  wonderful  palace  of  faery  that 
had  been  raised  in  a  night.  It  was  too  much  like  a  dream 
of  a  transcendent  loveliness  which,  even  while  we  sleep, 
we  know  must  vanish  as  if  it  had  never  been.  But  transient 
as  she  felt  it  must  be — surely  it  was  much  too  beautiful 
to  endure — she  was  yet  able  in  a  measure  to  yield  to  its 
delights. 

She  had  reared  her  orphan  niece  in  the  teeth  of  circum- 
stance. She  had  watched  her  grow  into  a  flower  in  whose 
beaut\'  she  had  learned  to  take  an  inordinate  pride.  And 
of  late  when  at  the  end  of  her  day's  labour  she  had  turned 
for  an  hour  to  her  story  papers  that,  before  she  went  to 
bed,  she  might  banish  the  too-insistent  present,  and  replace 
it  with  the  realm  of  faery,  she  had  been  led  to  meditate 
a  little  wildly,  a  httle  wistfully,  upon  the  beauty  of  the 
child.  If  only  some  rich  man,  some  gentleman  in  real  life 
could  be  brought  to  see  her,  might  he  not  fall  in  love  with 
her  !  In  her  weekly  story  paper  the  thing  was  occurring 
constantly.  Oh,  if  it  could  occur  to  Alice  !  Surely  no 
heroine  in  the  novelette?  was  more  beautiful  than  she. 
The  old  woman  believed  tnere  was  not  her  equal  in  loveli- 
ness in  all  the  world.  Besides,  it  was  coming  to  seem  so 
necessary   that    she   should    be    rescued    from   the   daily 

207 


BROKE    OF   COVENDEN 

found  of  her  arduous  toil.  It  had  begun  to  grow  more 
and  more  apparent  to  Miss  Sparrow  that  the  hfe  of  a  girl 
in  a  London  shop  was  too  severe  for  her  fragile  niece. 
The  long  hours,  the  close  confinement,  and  the  strain  of 
having  to  stand  behind  a  counter  from  eight  o'clock  in  the 
morning  till  eight  o'clock  at  night  was  begmning  to  tell 
upon  her.  You  had  only  to  glance  at  her  to  feel  that 
nature  had  not  planned  her  for  hardship.  Her  parents 
before  her  had  been  fragile  too.  Neither  of  them  from  the 
first  had  been  destined  for  long  days,  but  it  was  certain 
that  labour  and  poverty  had  curtailed  their  lives. 

Therefore  when  the  prince  out  of  the  fairy  book,  the 
nobleman  out  of  the  novelette,  came  and  slipped  a  wedding 
ring  on  the  finger  of  her  niece,  the  imaginative  old  lady, 
fearful  as  she  was  of  what  the  future  might  have  in  store, 
yet  had  a  heart  as  overflowing  as  that  of  Alice  herself. 
Even  now  she  paused  an  instant  in  her  work,  and  raised 
her  half-blind  eyes  to  peer  into  the  exquisite  face. 

"  I  will  say  this,  my  lamb,"  she  said,  and  she  did  not  try 
to  dissemble  the  far-away  echo  of  triumph  in  her  voice, 
"  Mr.  Broke  may  be  the  perfect  gentleman,  as  of  course  he 
is,  but  he  is  not  a  bit  too  good  for  you.  He  is  not  an  inch 
better  than  you  deserve.  And  you  will  not  disgrace  him. 
He  may  have  good  friends,  but  you  will  be  able  to  take  your 
place  amongst  them.  They  may  be  duchesses  and  earls, 
but  that  will  make  no  difference.  Your  private  character 
will  be  fit  to  stand  at  the  side  of  theirs.  I  have  brought 
you  up  carefully  ;  I  was  able  to  let  you  attend  half  days 
at  school  until  you  had  turned  fourteen  ;  you  have  formed 
no  low  companionships  ;  you  have  never  stayed  out  late 
in  the  evening  ;  you  have  gone  to  chapel  once  every  Sun- 
day ;  you  have  always  been  a  good  and  obedient  girl  in 
everything  ;  and  although  I  am  your  auntie  and  say  it, 
who  ought  not,  when  I  compare  your  looks  with  those  of 
the  ladies  with  handles  to  their  names,  whose  pictures 
are  in  the  illustrated  paper  the  grocer  wraps  the  tea  in, 
I  will  defy  anybody  to  deny  that  you  are  more  beautiful, 
a  hundred  times  more  beautiful,  than  they  are." 

"  Hush,  auntie,  dear,"  said  the  child  with  a  soft  laugh. 
"  Whatever  would  [icople  say  if  the}'  heard  you !  " 

"  I  don't  care,"  said  the  old  woman  vain- gloriously,  "  it 
208 


THE  NOBLEMAN  OF  THE  NOVELETTE 

is  the  truth.  Nobody  ought  to  be  ashamed  of  the  truth. 
I  will  say  again  that  I  think  Mr.  Broke  is  a  very  lucky 
young  gentleman.  I  know  I  am  your  auntie  ;  but  if  you 
were  not  my  niece  at  all,  and  I  had  had  nothing  to  do  with 
your  up-bringing,  I  should  say  the  same.  If  you  were  the 
niece  of  that  Mrs.  West  it  would  not  make  me  say 
different." 

It  was  at  this  moment  that  the  quiet  street  was  invaded 
by  alien  sounds.  There  was  a  remarkable  rattle  of  horses' 
feet,  but  unaccompanied  by  the  noise  of  wheels.  The  place 
enjoyed  an  immunity  from  traffic  as  a  rule  ;  and  there  was 
something  that  appeared  to  sound  special  and  peculiar 
about  this  oncoming  vehicle,  if  vehicle  it  was,  that  put  it 
out  of  the  category  of  a  tradesman's  cart.  Curiosity, 
which  in  that  sex  no  labour  is  too  earnest  to  overcome, 
urged  the  girl  to  peer  out  of  the  window. 

"  Oh,  look,  look,  auntie  !  "  she  cried.  "  A  carriage  and 
pair." 

Perchance  it  was  an  apparition  that  marked  an  epoch 
in  the  history  of  Hampden  Road.  Miss  Sparrow  could  not 
recall  an  instance  of  such  an  equipage  being  seen  in  it 
before.  Had  the  Queen  been  in  the  act  of  passing  her 
window,  the  old  woman  could  not  have  discarded  her  work 
more  vehemently  or  more  swiftly  have  adjusted  her  spec- 
tacles. 

"  How  splendid  !  "  she  said.  "  And  the  wheels  don't 
make  a  bit  of  noise  ;  and  how  pretty  those  bells  sound  when 
they  tinkle.  And  what  stately  men  those  two  are  sitting 
in  the  front,  although  they  do  look  funny  with  those  fur 
capes  on,  and  those  ornaments  in  their  hats.  They  must 
be  servants,  I  suppose,  but  I  am  sure  they  are  very  high 
class.  I  wonder  where  they  can  be  going.  Oh,  my  dearie, 
what  if  they  should  stop  at  Mrs.  West's  !  " 

"  It  is  only  passing  through  auntie,  dear,"  said  the  niece, 
smiling  a  little  at  the  old  woman's  enthusiasm.  She  was 
quite  familiar  with  these  vehicles ;  although  before  she  went 
to  the  shop  in  Bond  Street  they  would  have  cast  the  same 
sort  of  spell  upon  her. 

"  Why,  it  is  stopping,"  cried  the  old  lady  excitedly. 
"  Oh,  Alice,  it  is  going  to  stop  at  Mrs.  West's  !  " 

Suddenly  the  child  at  her  elbow  began  to  tremble 
209  o 


BROKE   OF   COVENDEN 

violently.    An  idea  had  gone  through  her  that  was  making 
her  gasp.  n 

"  It — it  is — going  to  stop  here  !  " 

The  old  woman  began  to  tremble  also  at  th,e  horror  of 
the  suggestion. 

"  Never ! "  she  gasped,  with  a  scared  face. 

But  outside  in  the  street  the  awful  fact  confronted  them. 
After  a  little  irresolution  on  the  part  of  the  coachman, 
during  which  period  the  footman  scanned  the  dingy 
numbers  of  the  doors  on  both  sides  of  the  street,  the  superb 
equipage  drew  up  exactly  in  front  of  the  magic  number  17. 
That  unassuming  number  had,  indeed,  come  of  late  to  have 
a  particular  significance  in  the  world  of  faery. 

"  Oh,  my  dear,"  said  the  aunt  in  a  flash  of  terrified 
inspiration,  "  it  is  one  of  Mr.  Broke's  grand  friends  come 
to  call  upon  you.     Whatever  shall  we  do  !  " 

The  mind  of  the  unhappy  young  wife  had  travelled  to 
that  conclusion  a  full  half  minute  ago.  For  an  instant  the 
old  woman  and  the  young  looked  in  an  agony  of  anxiousness 
into  the  white  faces  of  one  another.  That  wretched  little 
room  was  no  place  in  which  to  receive  grand  people.  Too 
acutely  were  they  conscious  of  the  mean  figures  it  and  its 
occupants  must  present  to  the  merciless  eyes  of  grand  people 
who  came  in  a  carriage  and  pair.  But  the  thought  upper- 
most in  their  minds,  the  most  numbing  and  paralysing 
thought,  was  the  fear  that  possessed  them  of  disgracing 
Mr.  Broke.  It  did  not  much  matter  what  grand  folks 
thought  about  people  as  poor  and  insignificant  as  they 
were  ;  but  now  that  Alice  was  actually  the  wife  of  Mr. 
Broke  it  might  do  him  a  grievous  injury  with  his  grand 
friends  if  she  were  to  be  discovered  in  such  circum- 
stances. 

"  Oh,  auntie  !  "  said  the  girl,  "  will  you  go  to  the  door, 
and — and  please  say  I  am  not  at  home." 

"  No,  child,"  said  the  aunt,  with  a  suspicion  of  primness 
striking  through  her  agitation,  "  I  cannot  say  that.  It 
wouki  be  an  untruth." 

"  Oh,  but,  auntie,  you  must,  please.  It  is  for  the  sake 
of — of  my  husband  !  His  friends  must  not  come  into  a 
room  like  this." 

"  No,  no,  child,  I  will  not  tell  a  falsehood." 
210 


THE  NOBLEMAN  OF  THE  NOVELETTE 

"  Oh,  but  auntie,  it  is — it  is  not  really  a  falsehood  at  all. 
It  only  means  that — that  I  cannot  see  them." 

During  this  rather  wild  dialogue  between  the  two 
distressed  creatures,  a  lady  with  a  very  red  face  and  a  very 
fine  hat  and  a  wonderful  fur  cloak,  had  been  seen  to  descend 
from  the  carriage  with  a  little  aid  from  the  footman  and  a 
good  deal  from  her  dignity.  With  an  electrical  thrill  in 
their  pulses  they  had  heard  her  come  up  the  steps  and 
thump  commandingly  upon  the  broken  knocker. 

"  Please,  auntie,  you  must." 

"  No,  child." 

A  second  commanding  thump  upon  the  decrepit  knocker. 

"  Oh,  what  can  I  do  ?  She  must  not  see  me.  But 
perhaps  it  is  his  mother.  Perhaps  she  will  not  mind.  I 
will  go,  auntie,"  she  added  with  the  swiftness  of  resolution. 

"  No,  no,  child."  said  her  aunt.  "  It  is  more  proper  that 
I  should  answer  the  door.  Stay  here,  dearie,  and  brush 
the  bits  of  cloth  off  your  dress,  and  take  the  needle  out  of 
your  sleeve,  and  find  the  Family  Herald,  and  try  to  look 
as  if  you  have  been  reading." 

In  the  middle  of  these  hoarsely  spoken  injunctions  the 
door  received  a  third  thump  from  the  knocker,  more  com- 
manding than  any.  Miss  Sparrow  ran  in  great  trepidation 
to  reply  to  it. 


311 


CHAPTER    XVII 
An  Excursion  into  Sentiment 

IN  less  than  a  minute  the  small  and  mean  room  had 
been  invaded  by  a  Presence.  The  lady  who  had 
come  in  the  carriage  and  pair  was,  in  the  eyes  of  Miss 
Sparrow,  fitted  in  every  way  to  be  a  friend  of  Mr.  Broke's. 
Indeed  the  voice  of  this  wonderful  person  was  as  remark- 
able as  his.  If  she  had  come  on  foot,  and  without  a  fur 
coat,  as  soon  as  she  began  to  speak  you  would  have  known 
her  to  be  a  lady,  born  and  bred.  And  she  too  had  the 
particular  magic  that  belonged  to  Mr.  Broke,  for  no  sooner 
did  she  begin  to  talk  to  you  than  the  overwhelming  sense 
of  her  grandeur  left  you.  By  some  occult  means  the  fear 
of  her  went  out  of  you  ;  and  you  discovered  yourself  to  be 
talking  to  her  with  far  less  trepidation  than  seemed  possible 
before  you  had  spoken  to  her. 

"  You  have  a  niece,"  the  lady  had  said,  before  Miss 
Sparrow  had  been  able  to  make  an  attempt  to  say 
anything.     "  May  I  see  her  ?  " 

"  Yes,  ma'am,"  Miss  Sparrow  had  murmured  in  reply 
in  a  perfectly  inaudible  tone,  and  making  a  deep  curtsey 
that  seemed  to  have  dropped  straight  out  of  the  Georgian 
period. 

When  the  great  lady  came  into  the  little  room,  four 
yards  by  five,  she  said  :  "  Your  room  is  delightfully  snug 
and  cosy.     May  I  take  off  my  coat  ?  " 

To  herself  she  said  :  "  One  wonders  why  the  lower  classes 
have  such  a  deep-rooted  horror  of  ventilation.  One 
wonders  how  they  can  exist  at  all  in  such  an  atmosphere.'* 

212 


AN  EXCURSION    INTO    SENTIMENT 

Miss  Sparrow  begged  to  be  allowed  to  help  the  lady  to 
take  off  her  coat ;  and  while  she  was  engaged  in  so  doing, 
her  fingers,  which  had  passed  a  lifetime  in  the  handling 
of  inferior  materials,  were  thrilled  by  the  feel  of  the  soft 
fur  and  the  finest  cloth  that  money  could  buy.  A  dress- 
maker as  well  as  a  poet  may  have  a  sense  of  artistry. 

The  old  woman  then  made  haste  to  provide  the  great 
lady  with  the  best  chair  the  room  could  boast  :  a  chair 
covered  with  horse-hair.  Seated  upon  this  Billy's  mother 
was  able,  at  her  leisure,  but  not  without  some  little  personal 
inconvenience,  to  survey  the  person  whom  Billy  had 
married.  She  regarded  her  with  a  frank  scrutiny,  a  little 
softened  by  her  smile. 

"  I  think  you  know  my  son,"  she  said.  "  My  name  is 
Broke." 

The  child  Hfted  her  eyes  to  her  nervously,  and  blushed 
a  bright  red  colour. 

"  I  understood  my  son  to  say  that  you  were  married 
to  him  on  Tuesday." 

"  Yes,"  said  Alice,  timidly. 

Mrs.  Broke  paused  to  recontinue  her  scrutiny.  Her 
first  sensation  was  one  of  displeasure.  The  person  was 
not  clad  in  the  colours  in  which  her  fancy  had  chosen  to 
depict  her.  You  could  not  call  her  vulgar.  And  she 
could  hardly  be  designing  with  a  countenance  of  such 
babelike  candour,  of  such  unmitigated  innocence.  -The 
phantasm  of  the  adventuress  with  the  previous  husband 
had  already  faded  as  completely  as  though  it  had  never 
been.  Indeed  as  she  continued  to  look  upon  the  child,  she 
could  begin  to  understand  in  a  sense  Billy's  immense 
anxiety.  Our  redoubtable  lady  had  decided  in  her  own 
mind  that  his  attitude  was  a  little  farcical,  which  bald  facts 
would  presently  expose,  but  now  she  had  set  eyes  on  the 
object  of  his  solicitude  she  began  reluctantly  enough  to 
discern  a  reason  for  it. 

The  creature  was,  indeed,  a  delicate  fragile  thing. 
To  wound  her  would  be  like  pulling  a  wing  off  a  butterfly. 
Our  redoubtable  lady  sighed.  The  faint  odour  of  romance 
that  her  matter-of-fact  nostrils  scented,  annoyed  her. 
It  seemed  as  though  there  was  nothing  to  be  done.  She 
had  come  into  meanness  to  look  for  vulgarity,  and  instead 

213 


BROKE    OF    COVENDEN 

she  half- feared  that  she  had  found  something  else.  Look- 
ing in  the  face  of  that  child,  it  was  impossible  by  any 
association  of  ideas  to  attribute  motive.  She  could  not 
even  attribute  design.  This  strange  old  person,  the  aunt, 
was  in  her  own  way  also  evidently  without  blemish. 
Billy's  mother  could  read  in  those  toil-worn  eyes  an 
extraordinary  solicitude  for  her  niece.  In  a  grotesque  and 
impalpable  way  it  reminded  her  of  the  look  there  was  in 
Billy's  when  he  made  her  promise  not  to  hurt  her.  There 
was  a  similar  quixotic  tenderness  in  the  face  of  this  old 
woman. 

Insensibly,  our  redoubtable  lady  modified  her  tones 
when  she  spoke  next ;  and  the  question  she  asked  was  by 
no  means  the  one  she  had  come  there  to  put.  The  mode 
of  it  and  the  inflection  would  doubtless  have  increased  the 
sense  of  annoyance  under  which  she  laboured  had  she 
been  listening  to  the  sound  of  her  own  voice. 

"  Are  you  very  deeply  in  love  with  my  son  ?  " 

The  child  looked  across  to  her  without  speaking  :  a  soft 
light  as  of  tears  trembled  round  her  eyelashes. 

"  You  love  him,  child  ?  " 

"  I  could  not  make  you  understand  how  much  I  love 
him,  ma'am." 

"  Yes,  child,  I  think  you  could.  I  suppose  if  you  learnt 
that  you  had  done  him  an  injury — unwittingly,  of  course 
— you  would  be  very  much  distressed." 

"  I  could  not  do  him  an  injury." 

"  I  said  unwittingly." 

"  I  do  not  think  it  would  be  possible  for  me  to  do  him 
an  injury.  I  could  not  have  a  thought  that  would 
do  him  harm.  I  do  not  see  how  I  could  do  him 
an  injury." 

For  once  Mrs.  Broke  was  at  a  loss  to  know  how  to  press 
her  point  strictly  in  accordance  with  the  rules  of  the  game. 
She  was  under  a  pledge  to  Billy  not  to  hurt  the  child  ; 
although  to  be  sure  when  she  made  that  promise  her  own 
private  interpretation  of  it  was  not  to  "  hurt  the  fine  feelings 
of  this  person."  But  she  was  fain  to  confess  now  she  had 
seen  her,  that  promise  or  no  promise,  it  was  hardly  in  her 
})owcr  wantonly  to  cause  her  pain.  In  a  sense  she  was 
almost  like  a  piece  of  gossamer,  the  stuff  of  which  dreams 

214 


AN  EXCURSION    INTO    SENTIMENT 

are  fashioned.     A  rude  breath  upon  that  fragility,  and  it 
might  dissolve,  and  the  creature  evanish  in  the  thin  air. 

Indeed  our  redoubtable  lady,  so  cool,  so  unemotional, 
so  instinct  with  restraint,  was  afraid  that  she  had  caught 
herself  in  the  act  of  making  a  sort  of  excursion  into  senti- 
ment. Her  attitude  towards  this  pitiful  little  piece  of  life 
who  had  ruined  her  son,  and  had  ruined  her  and  her  family 
also,  was  growing  to  be  as  indefensible  as  was  his.  She, 
too,  hostile  as  she  was  and  must  be,  was  becoming  pos- 
sessed with  a  ludicrous  sense  of  the  immunity  conferred 
upon  the  child  by  her  sacred  innocence.  The  wretched 
little  creature  had  ruined  them  all  with  no  more  effectual 
weapon  than  that.  The  affair  was  too  consciously  ironical. 
The  President  of  those  mocking  Immortals  who  sate  in 
heaven  had  a  true  eye  for  the  incongruous  when  he  selected 
the  innocence  of  a  babe  as  the  instrument  to  level  to 
its  native  dust  an  Inordinate  Pride  which  had  towered 
above  the  centuries.  The  galled  woman  saw  all  this  too 
clearly,  but  yet  she  stayed  the  hand  that  was  poised  to 
strike.  It  was  as  though  she  held  a  small  bird  captive  in 
her  gripe.  The  slightest  pressure  of  those  powerful  fingers 
and  the  last  wild  fiutterings  in  the  tremulous  breast  would 
be  for  ever  quiet.  For  the  first  time  in  her  hfe  the 
admirable  lady,  whose  exterior  was  of  the  consistency  of  , 
polished  steel,  who  had  disciplined  her  own  daughters 
ruthlessly,  and  had  known  how  to  make  them  suffer  for 
the  common  good,  found  herself  picking  words  and  phrases 
with  a  peculiar  discretion,  a  peculiar  nicety.  She  must 
take  care  not  so  much  as  to  brush  that  ilowerlike  sensi- 
tiveness.    If  a  rose-petal  is  touched  it  is  bruised. 

"  I  think,  child,"  she  said,  still  gazing  at  the  wife  of  her 
son,  "  that  you  look  a  little  thin.  You  look  rather 
delicate." 

"  Yes,  ma'am,  she  does,"  interposed  the  aunt,  with  some 
eagerness.  "  It  was  a  long  way  for  her  to  go  to  Bond 
Street  to  the  shop.  It  was  not  convenient  for  her  to  live 
in,  you  see,  ma'am,  because  Perkin  and  Warbeck's  were 
so  short  of  room.  Besides,  Alice  liked  the  liberty  of  walking 
to  and  fro.  Shop  life  is  very  hard,  ma'am.  It  is  almost 
like  being  in  a  prison  from  morning  till  night,  only  in  a 
prison  I  suppose  you  are  sometimes  allowed  to  sit  down. 

215 


BROKE    OF    COVENDEN 

She  could  not  have  stood  it  much  longer  ;  it  was  wearing 
her  out.  But  she  had  to  go  out  to  work  to  keep  a  roof 
over  both  our.  heads,  because  my  dressmaking  business  is 
not  large  enough  to  provide  work  for  two.  But  I  thank 
God,  ma'am,  that  that  is  all  over  now.  Mr.  Broke  has 
been  so  kind,  you  don't  know.  She  is  not  to  go  to  work 
any  more.  On  Tuesday — the  day  they  were  married,  you 
know,  ma'am — he  gave  her  a  five-pound  note ;  and  when 
he  can  make  the  proper  arrangements  he  says  he  will  get 
her  away  into  the  country.  He  says  she  wants  the  country 
air.  And  so  she  does,  ma'am.  If  her  parents  before  her 
could  have  had  it,  they  might  have  been  spared  many 
years  longer  than  they  were." 

"  They  are  both  dead,  I  presume  ?  " 

"  Her  father  died  of  a  rapid  consumption  before  she  was 
born,  and  her  mother  did  not  survive  her  birth." 

"  You  adopted  your  niece,  Miss  Sparrow  ?  " 

"  Yes,  ma'am.  It  has  been  a  struggle,  but  God  has 
seen  fit  to  help  us.  And  I  will  say  this,  ma'am,  from  the 
day  I  buried  her  mother  Alice  has  never  been  anything  but 
a  joy  tome.  She  has  never  given  me  a  moment  of  trouble 
or  anxiety.  She  has  been  a  perfectly  good  and  obedient 
girl,  and  now,  ma'am,  she  has  her  reward." 

"  I  gather  that  the  union  of  your  niece  and  my  son  meets 
with  your  approval,  Miss  Sparrow  ?  " 

"  Oh,  ma'am,  it  is  just  like  a  dream  !  I  can't  tell  you 
how  many  times  since  she  grew  up  to  be  so  beautiful  I 
have  dreamt  that  Alice  would  marry  a  gentleman.  It  was 
what  a  lady  like  you  would  call  a  great  presumption,  I 
know,  ma'am,  but  you  cannot  think  how  necessary  it  had 
come  to  seem.  The  only  thing  that  could  save  her  from 
the  shop  was  for  her  to  become  a  wife.  But  you  see, 
ma'am,  a  common-natured  man  would  not  have  done  for 
her.  She  is  made  too  delicate  for  that.  Even  a  fine 
clothes  gentleman,  a  merely  rich  gentleman  would  not 
have  done  for  her.  He  had  to  be  a  gentleman  by  nature 
as  well,  ma'am,  a  gentleman  born  and  bred.  She  puts  me 
in  mind  of  a  flower,  ma'am,  that  has  to  be  planted  on  the 
south  side  of  a  wall  so  that  it  may  get  the  sun,  and  be 
screened  from  the  cold  wind.  I  have  been  able  to  do  that 
myself,  ma'am,  in  a  way  ;    not  altogether  in  the  way  I 

21b 


AN    EXCURSION    INTO   SENTIMENT 

should  like,  you  know,  ma'am ;  but  I  am  certain  that 
things  have  not  been  quite  so  hard  for  her  as  they  would 
have  been  without  me.  It  would  have  been  so  lonely  for 
her  if  I  had  not  been  here  ;  and  when  she  got  home  every 
night  from  the  shop  at  a  quarter  to  nine,  there  would  have 
been  no  fresh  cup  of  tea  waiting  for  her.  But  she  has  been 
very  much  to  me,  ma'am,  too.  Without  her  I  think  I 
should  have  given  in  long  ago.  I  could  not  have  kept  on 
so  long  without  some  object  to  work  for.  I  am  seventy- 
two,  ma'am,  and  I  am  about  worn  out.  But  it  doesn't 
matter  now,  you  know,  ma'am.  I  am  perfectly  content. 
And  I  am  very  grateful.  It  is  very  kind  of  God  to  re- 
member an  old  woman,  and  make  her  dreams  come  true 
just  as  she  is  giving  in." 

Mrs.  Broke  thought  of  that  familiar  saying  of  Goethe's 

Was  man  in  der  Jugend  wiinscht,  hat  man  im  Alter  die  Fiille. 

"  You  make  me  think  of  the  words  of  a  great  German 
poet,"  she  said  to  the  old  woman.  "  In  j'outh  what  one 
wishes,  in  age  one  shall  have  as  much  as  one  will." 

"  It  is  more  than  true  in  my  case,  ma'am.  When  your 
son,  the  noblest-looking  gentleman  I  have  ever  seen — I 
hope  you  won't  mind  my  saying  it,  ma'am — came  and  sat 
in  that  very  chair  you  are  sitting  in  now,  and  he  said,  '  Miss 
Sparrow,  do  you  mind  if  I  marry  your  niece  ?  '  do  you 
know,  ma'am,  I  nearly  broke  down.  Your  son  might  have 
come  from  heaven,  for  if  I  had  had  my  pick  of  all  the  gen- 
tlemen in  the  world  for  Alice,  I  think  I  should  have  chosen 
him.  From  the  way  he  spoke  I  could  tell  how  he  loved 
her.  And  as  for  Alice,  morning,  noon,  and  night,  all  day 
and  every  day  she  has  no  thoughts  in  her  mind  but  what 
are  caused  by  him." 

"  I  suppose,  Miss  Sparrow,  you  have  had  to  work  very 
hard  at  your  dressmaking,"  said  Billy's  mother.  The  strain 
the  old  woman  had  entered  upon  was  rather  more  than 
even  that  stoical  person  cared  to  support. 

"  Yes,  ma'am.  I  have,"  said  the  old  woman  with  hesitation. 
"  I  know  that  rich  people  who  wear  splendid  clothes  and  ride 
in  carriages  and  pairs  are  supposed  to  despise  poor  people 
who  have  to  work  for  their  bread  ;  but  I  think  I  can  own  it 

217 


BROKE   OF   COVENDEN 

to  you,  ma'am,  because  you  are  Mr.  Broke's  mother,  and 
have  his  kind  ways.  Yes,  ma'am,  I  have  been  a  worker ; 
'  an  old  stniggler,'  as  the  old  woman  said  to  the  great 
Doctor  Johnson.  I  daresay,  ma'am,  you  read  that  beauti- 
ful anecdote  last  week  in  the  Family  Herald — I  always 
think  that  those  stories  of  great  men  on  the  last  page  are 
alone  worth  a  penny.  Not,  you  know,  ma'am,  that  it  is 
the  actual  work  that  grinds  you  down.  It  is  the  fear.  It 
makes  the  blood  run  cold  in  your  body  when  you  think 
what  must  happen  if  you  cannot  find  the  three  and  six- 
pence for  the  landlord  every  Friday.  It  may  sound  like 
boasting,  ma'am,  to  you,  but  all  the  forty-two  years  I 
have  lived  in  this  house  I  have  never  had  to  ask  for  a  day 
longer  in  which  to  pay  the  rent.  I  don't  think  there  are 
many  who  can  say  that.  But  the  rent  is  only  one  thing, 
although  the  most  important.  There  is  the  gas  and  the 
water,  and  you  can't  do  without  tea  and  bread  and  butter, 
and  coals  in  winter.  Then  sometimes  you  want  clothes  too ; 
and  there  are  all  manner  of  little  odds  and  ends  of  expense 
when  you  least  expect  them.  Of  course  I  know,  ma'am, 
that  you  rich  ladies  despise  all  this.  Some  of  you  would 
call  it  low,  I  dare  say,  although,  ma'am,  I  am  sure  you 
would  not.  You  are  the  mother  of  Mr.  Broke  ;  and  I 
could  not  have  opened  my  heart  to  you  like  this  if  I  could 
not  trust  you,  you  being  his  mother.  You  see,  ma'am, 
strive  as  you  may  at  dressmaking  you  can  hardly  ever  put 
more  than  a  penny  or  twopence  by  in  a  week  for  a  rainy 
day.  And  for  the  last  few  years  I  have  had  great  fears. 
My  eyesight  has  been  failing.  I  have  not  been  able  to  sit 
so  long  as  I  used  to.  And  then  you  always  have  the  fear 
that  as  you  grow  old  you  may  lose  your  custom,  or  you  may 
be  paralysed.  But  those  are  the  thoughts  that  you  hardly 
dare  to  speak  about." 

"  Exactly.  May  I  ask  how  my  son  first  became  ac- 
quainted with  your  niece  ?  " 

Again  had  Billy's  mother  felt  the  need  for  a  change  of 
theme. 

"  He  first  saw  her  at  Perkin  and  Warbeck's  shop,  ma'am. 
I  think  he  got  friendly  with  her  by  coming  in  to  buy  things. 
But  it  was  not  until  he  bought  a  pair  of  lady's  gloves  of 
her,  and  then  asked  her  to  accept  them,  that  she  spoke 

218 


AN  EXCURSION    INTO    SENTIMENT 

of  him  to  me.  Of  course,  ma'am,  I  had  alwkys  told  her 
never  to  take  a  present  from  any  gentleman,  not  even  a 
bunch  of  violets.  You  may  have  daughters  of  your  own, 
ma'am,  but  even  if  you  have  you  must  forgive  me  for  saying, 
ma'am,  that  I  don't  suppose  you  have  any  idea  how  careful 
poor  girls  working  in  public  for  their  living  have  to  be. 
It  is  almost  a  curse,  ma'am,  if  they  are  born  good-looking. 
There  are  two  kinds  of  gentlemen,  ma'am,  just  as  there  are 
two  kinds  of  most  things.  There's  the  good  and  the  bad  ; 
and  to  young  girls,  ma'am,  either  kind  is  so  much  more 
dangerous  than  those  gentlemen  who  are  not  gentle- 
men. 

"  From  that  time,  ma'am,  he  was  always  paying  her 
little  attentions,  so  that  no  matter  what  warnings  I  gave 
her  she  began  to  think  of  nothing  else  but  Mr.  Broke.  I 
nearly  went  down  on  my  knees  to  her,  ma'am,  to  beg  her 
to  be  careful.  She  was  a  very  good  girl  ;  and  I  could  see 
how  hard  she  tried  to  heed  my  warnings  not  to  think  about 
him.  But  oh,  ma'am,  no  matter  what  she  did,  Mr.  Broke 
had  her  in  his  power.  If  he  had  not  been  the  good  sort  of 
gentleman,  I  dare  not  think  of  what  might  have  happened. 
You  may  have  daughters  of  your  own,  as  I  say,  ma'am  ; 
and  you  may  have  seen  a  girl  in  love  against  her  own 
judgment.  It  is  very  terrible.  We  both  used  to  cry 
together  about  it  in  the  evenings  when  she  got  home,  and 
we  used  to  pray  together ;  but  Mr.  Broke  got  at  last  so 
that  he  could  twist  Alice  round  his  little  finger.  She  could 
not  help  herself ;  Mr.  Broke  was  too  strong  for  her  ;  it  was 
almost  like  what  you  might  call  fate.  Then  he  took  to 
writing  to  her  ;  and  she  used  to  go  almost  wild.  She 
would  hardly  allow  his  letters  to  go  out  of  her  hands  ;  and 
she  always  carried  them  in  her  pocket,  backwards  and 
forwards  to  the  shop. 

"  And  I  will  confess  it  to  you  now,  ma'am,  it  was  a 
torment,  a  torture  to  me  all  the  time.  I  had  never  seen 
this  Mr.  Broke  ;  and  you  must  forgive  me  for  saying  it, 
ma'am,  but  I  did  not  believe  in  him.  Gentlemen  who 
write  their  letters  on  that  sort  of  notepaper,  real  officers 
of  the  Queen  at  Windsor  Castle,  don't  mean  any  good  as 
a  rule  to  the  likes  of  us.  But  I  misjudged  him,  you  see, 
ma'am,  I  misjudged  him  ;    and  if  the  gratitude  of  an  old 

219 


BROKE    OF    COVENDEN 

and  poor  woman  who  has  never  had  a  daughter  of  her  own 
is  worth  anything,  and  I  don't  suppose  that  it  is,  from  my 
heart  I  give  it  to  your  son,  Mr.  Broke.  I  honour  him, 
ma'am  ;  I  think  of  him  with  reverence,  because  for  a 
gentleman  of  his  position  it  comes  so  easy  to  be  dis- 
honourable. I  say  what  I  know,  ma'am,  because  when  I 
was  about  Alice's  age,  or  a  little  older,  I  too — I — only  in 
my  case — only  ! " 

The  old  woman  stopped  abruptly.  A  faint  tinge  of 
colour  crept  into  her  yellow  face,  and  she  trembled  vio- 
lently. A  moment  afterwards  her  eyes  filled  with  tears. 
A  somewhat  disconcerting  silence  ensued,  during  which 
the  harsh  and  furrowed  features  melted  and  relaxed.  It 
was  for  an  instant  only,  however.  Her  face  almost  im- 
mediately resumed  the  expression  which  time  and  labour 
had  given  to  it. 

"  I — I  am  talking  to  you,  ma'am,  as  I  don't  think  I  have 
ever  talked  to  any  one  before,"  the  old  woman  continued 
hastily.  "  You  are,  as  I  say,  Mr.  Broke's  mother.  You 
are  just  like  him  in  many  ways.  When  I  talk  to  you  I 
almost  feel  as  if  I  am  talking  to  him.  I  know  that  I  can 
can  trust  you  and  respect  you.  And  perhaps  nobody  ever' 
will  know  but  God  and  my  own  mind,  what  the  reason  is 
that  I  honour  and  respect  your  son  so  much." 

Mrs.  Broke  rose  and  took  up  her  coat.  Her  interview 
had  proved  a  more  painful  business  than  she  had  antici- 
pated. Every  topic  of  this  old  woman  imbued  her  with 
the  same  feeling  of  discomfort.  Her  simplicity  struck 
unerringly  home.  Her  extreme  candour,  and  innocence 
of  spirit  became  barbs  to  fret  the  susceptibilities  of  this 
wise  and  experienced  lady. 

As  Mrs.  Broke  rose  to  go  the  young  girl  came  from  her 
station  behind  the  table  where  she  had  been  standing  as 
far  from  her  mother-in-law  as  she  could  get,  and  made  a 
timid  offer  to  help  her  to  put  on  her  coat.  As  she  did  so  Mrs. 
Broke  gazed  somewhat  abstractedly  at  the  feats  of  colour 
embodied  in  her  hair  and  her  soft  skin,  which  the  slightly 
flushed  appearance  of  her  cheeks  seemed  to  enhance.  She 
tried  to  peer  through  the  mysterious  dark  lights  of  her 
eyes,  where  still  brooded  the  ineffable  secrets  of  her  child- 
hood.    She  looked  upon  the  fragile  grace  of  the  so  slender 

220 


AN   EXCURSION    INTO   SENTIMENT 

limbs  ;  the  quick  little  movements  by  which  they  ex- 
pressed a  fawnlike  fear,  and  the  startled  half-appealing 
air  as  of  childhood  throwing  itself  upon  the  mercy  of 
maturity,  with  which  she  came  forward  to  confront  the 
mother  of  her  husband. 

Mrs.  Broke  accepted  in  silence  her  service  of  holding  the 
fur  coat,  and  of  deftly  aiding  the  insinuation  of  her  matronly 
form  within  it.  Without  speaking,  our  august  lady  con- 
tinued to  regard  her  for  some  time  after  she  was  ready  to 
go.  This  wretched  slip  of  a  child  had  ruined  Billy  ;  had 
probably  ruined  them  all ;  and  her  real  motive  in  pene- 
trating that  morning  into  the  heart  of  that  squalid  district 
was  to  inform  her  of  those  facts  in  just  so  many  words. 
Curiosity  had  been  the  pretext  she  had  given,  even  to 
herself ;  but  deep  down  in  the  feminine  heart  of  her  she 
knew  all  the  time  there  had  been  concealed  a  cold  spirit  of 
revenge.  If  the  creature  really  did  love  Billy,  of  course 
after  the  fashion  of  her  kind,  as  the  boy  in  his  infatuation 
insisted  that  she  did,  she  would  know  how  to  punish  her 
for  that  act  of  presumption.  But  as  the  galled  woman 
continued  to  look  upon  that  strange  radiance,  no  thought 
of  retaliation,  of  revenge,  was  there  to  sully  her.  Perhaps 
she  had  never  been  so  completely  quelled  in  her  life.  The 
wistful  appealing  air  of  this  babe  among  womenkind  would 
have  struck  the  venom  out  of  the  heart  of  King"  Herod. 
The  fair  child  was  a  creature  of  mist,  besprinkled  with  gold 
dust  from  the  wings  of  a  butterfly.  She  was  a  fairy 
made  out  of  a  piece  of  gossamer.  To  look  upon  her 
was  to  be  disarmed  ;  to  approach  her  was  to  think  of 
love. 

At  last  our  redoubtable  lady  took  away  her  eyes  and 
moved  to  the  door  of  the  little  room.  Suddenly,  however, 
she  returned  and  taking  the  child  by  the  shoulders,  kissed 
her  gravely. 

"  I  think,"  she  said,  "it  is  necessary  that  you  should 
get  away  from  this  horrid  London,  away  into  the  country 
as  soon  as  you  can.  I  have  been  thinking  out  a 
small  scheme.  There  is  a  little  cottage  near  where  I  live, 
quite  a  pretty  little  cottage  on  the  top  of  a  hill,  a  very 
healthy  and  breezy  cottage.  I  think  I  can  find  a  few  small 
articles  of  furniture  to  put  in  it ;    but  you  must  give  me, 

221 


BROKE    OF    COVENDEN 

say  a  fortnight,  to  have  it  painted  and  whitewashed,  and 
then  you  must  come  at  once  ;  and  your  aunt  must  come  too. 
There  must  be  no  more  dressmaking ;  no  more  payments 
of  three  and  sixpence  every  Friday  to  the  landlord.  If  it 
is  possible  I  think  you  will  be  wise  to  sell  your  furniture. 
The  carriage  of  it  to  your  new  home  will  probably  exceed 
its  value.  But  of  course  I  do  not  mean  that  if  there  are 
any  things  particularly  dear  to  you  that  you  are  not  to 
bring  them.  Do  so  by  all  means.  Now,  here  is  another 
note  for  five  pounds  to  banish  that  horrid  dressmaking. 
You  must  both  of  you  promise  never  to  do  another  stitch. 
And  if  you  want  some  more  money  to  help  you  to  move, 
you  will  please  write  to  me,  will  you  not  ?  Here  is  a  card 
with  my  address  upon  it. 

"  Good-bye  now.  I  will  write  to  tell  you  the  day  upon 
which  your  cottage  will  be  ready.  It  has  honeysuckle 
and  clematis  running  all  over  it,  and  a  little  garden  in  front 
full  of  flowers  and  apple  trees;  and  there  is  a  wood  on  the 
side  of  the  hill  behind,  in  which  in  the  spring  and  summer 
the  birds  sing  all  day,  and  half  the  night  as  well.  I  feel 
sure  it  will  enchant  you.  Good-bye  ;  and  do  not  fail  to 
let  me  know  the  day  upon  which  I  may  expect  you.  You 
must  take  a  ticket  for  Cuttisham  at  Paddington  station, 
and  you  shall  be  met  on  arrival." 

Kissing  her  daughter-in-law  for  the  second  time,  and 
shaking  hands  with  Miss  Sparrow  rather  less  perfunctorily 
than  was  her  wont,  Lady  Bountiful  escaped  the  scene  of 
gratitude  she  saw  to  be  brewing,  by  moving  swiftly  through 
the  dark  evil-smelling  passage  to  the  street. 

Her  appearance  there  was  a  great  relief  to  her  sister's 
horses,  who  had  been  pacing  up  and  down  the  dirty  thor- 
oughfare, to  keep  themselves  warm,  for  more  than  an  hour. 
The  relief  to  her  sister's  coachman  and  footman  was  even 
greater.  Those  serious  gentlemen  had  come  to  the  con- 
clusion, by  slow  degrees,  that  Mrs.  Broke  had  been  murdered 
in  that  most  evil-looking  house.  And  they  were  inclined 
to  think  by  that  time  her  mutilated  body  had  been  made 
away  with.  When  their  mistress,  the  Honourable  Mrs. 
Reginald  Twysden-Cockshott,  went  slumming,  never  by 
any  chance  did  she  stay  longer  than  two  minutes  in  any 
particular  house.     And  even  then  she  did  not  go  alone, 

222 


AN  EXCURSION    INTO    SENTIMENT 

and  it  was  alwa}^  arranged  that  the  police  should  be  in 
the  neighbourhood. 

As  the  carriage  containing  Mr.  Broke's  mother  glided 
and  tinkled  out  of  the  squalid  street,  aunt  and  niece  were 
locked  in  one  another's  arms,  faint  with  tears. 


223 


CHAPTER    XVIII 

A  Short  Excursus  ;  and  a  Conversation 
apropos  of  Nothing 

MRS.  BROKE  had  been  shaken  to  the  foundations  of 
her  beUef .  For  the  first  time  her  Hnes  had  been 
cast  among  the  Poor;  the  Poor  to  whom  the  struggle  for 
existence  is  a  birthright ;  the  Poor  whose  sole  heritage  is 
an  unwholesome  mind  in  an  unwholesome  body,  the 
memorial  of  generation  after  generation  bred  to  humilia- 
tion and  despair.  She  was  in  the  habit  of  playing  the  part 
of  Lady  Bountiful  to  the  labouring  class  in  her  terri- 
torial hamlet,  and  she  found  the  occupation  pastoral. 
But  Hampden  Road  was  vastly  different.  The  glimpse  it 
had  afforded  of  poverty  by  acreage,  of  want,  degradation, 
and  disease,  massed  and  in  the  aggregate,  had  a  little 
amazed,  a  little  overwhelmed  her. 

Emphatically  she  was  a  person  belonging  to  her  own 
class.  She  saw  with  their  eyes,  heard  with  their  ears, 
understood  with  their  understanding.  She  had  taken  it 
for  granted,  in  a  bland  and  not  too  definite  manner,  that 
the  denizens  of  Hampden  Road,  who  were  written  down 
as  so  many  millions  in  the  statistics  of  the  population, 
enjoyed  an  existence  of  a  kind  in  some  remote  and  alien 
latitude.  They  were  certainly  known  to  exist,  because 
there  was  a  column  of  police  intelligence  in  the  Standard 
newspaper  every  morning,  and  anthropologists  wrote  of 
them  in  books.  One  assumed  they  were  akin  to  the 
Fijians.  One  heard  of  them  in  a  precisely  similar  fashion, 
without  having  any  more  arresting  testimony  of  their 
existence.  They  were  both  equally  remote.  The  Fijians 
were  a  coloured  people  living  in  the  Tropics  ;    the  Poor 

224 


A    SHORT    EXCURSUS 

were  a  dirty  people  living  in  Unpleasantness.  The  Fijians 
owed  their  savagery  to  their  nakedness,  and  their  colour 
to  the  heat  of  the  sun.  The  Poor  owed  their  poverty  to 
their  viciousness,  and  their  squalor  to  natural  inclination. 

On  going  forth  into  those  unexplored  regions  she  did 
not  expect  to  be  confronted  with  a  pair  of  intensely, 
exaggeratedly  human  persons  struggling  against  a  grim 
monster  that  was  pressing  out  their  lives.  The  thing  had 
been  so  vivid,  so  actual,  that  she  could  not  deny  its  authen- 
ticity.    It  must  be  allowed  to  rank  as  a  page  of  experience. 

More  than  once  on  her  way  back  to  her  own  impover- 
ished  family  in  the  country  Mrs.  Broke  shuddered  when 
she  recalled  the  significance  of  three  and  sixpence  every 
Friday  for  the  landlord ;  and  the  aching  toil  involved  in 
its  acquisition.  They  were  poor  themselves.  Of  late 
they  had  come  to  consider  their  own  poverty  as  too  positive, 
too  palpable  and  bitter.  But  now  she  had  seen  the  aunt 
and  niece  in  Hampden  Road  her  views  were  slightly  tinged 
with  horror.  It  was  as  though  she  and  her  class  belonged 
to  a  superhuman  caste  of  person,  a  something  excelling 
human,  whose  tenement  was  in  the  rarefied  ether  of  a 
jDlanet  other  than  our  common  earth.  The  very  things 
"they  had  come  to  regard  as  pregnant  with  life  and  death 
did  not  exist  at  all  for  the  denizens  of  Hampden  Road. 
It  was  a  little  bewildering  that  two  races  of  human  beings 
should  grow  up  side  by  side,  sprung  from  a  common  Maker 
and  a  common  soil,  and  yet  have  these  elemental  differences. 
It  was  a  little  incredible  that  there  should  be  a  race  of 
lonely  women,  living  cheek  by  jowl  with  her,  differing 
from  her  in  not  one  essential  of  flesh  and  blood — women 
derived  of  women,  breathing  the  same  air,  stuffed  with  the 
same  aspirations  and  emotions  as  herself,  whose  only 
luxury  was  Death. 

Mrs.  Broke  went  back  to  her  husband  and  children  in 
the  country  with  her  thoughts  diverted  in  a  measure  from 
the  wreck  of  the  fortunes  of  her  house.  It  seemed  almost 
to  savour  of  cynicism  to  view  at  that  moment  Billy's 
marriage  in  such  a  light,  when  so  recently  she  had -been 
face  to  face  with  an  ampler  suffering.  When  she  drove 
out  of  Cuttisham  into  the  bare  wind-bitten  lanes  leading 
to  Covenden  it  was  good  to  breathe  again  the  pure  and 

225  P 


BROKE    OF    COVENDEN 

shrewd  airs  of  the  countryside  after  the  foul  vapours  of 
London.  At  that  instant  the  wish  foremost -in  her  was 
never  to  set  foot  again  in  the  nauseating  place.  She  wanted 
to  shut  Hampden  Road  out  of  her  consciousness  for  ever. 
She  must  forget  it.  It  was  a  nightmare  to  hold  her  soul 
in  thrall. 

An  uneasy  sense  had  entered  into  her  for  the  first  time 
that  she  and  her  kind,  the  moneyed  and  privileged  classes 
of  which  she  was  an  insignificant  unit,  had  directly  to 
answer  for  such  a  state  of  things.  It  seemed  to  give  the 
verdict  against  them  at  once  as  unworthy  of  their  responsi- 
bilities. Several  times  already  she  had  caught  herself  in 
the  act  of  thinking  aloud  to  a  somewhat  extravagant 
tenour  :  "  We  may  burke  it,  we  may  shirk  it,  we  may  run 
from  it,  we  may  shut  it  out  from  our  lives  by  building  stone 
walls  around  them,  but  we  shall  not  always  be  able  to 
keep  our  park  gates  between  it  and  our  guilt.  One  day  it 
will  come  home  to  us.  We  shall  be  called  on  to  pay  in 
kind  for  the  obligations  we  have  disregarded.  Dear  God  ! 
how  patient  they  are  !  One  would  suppose  that  they  have 
their  pride  too.  They  must  be  a  tenacious  terrier-like 
breed  of  people  ;  they  fight  in  silence,  and  hold  on  to  the 
last.  But  it  cannot  be  so  always.  They  have  their 
periodical  revolutions  in  France  ;  by  what  miracle  do  we 
not  have  ours  !  " 

It  was  about  the  luncheon  hour  that  Mrs.  Broke  turned 
in  at  the  gates  of  her  demesne.  On  her  way  to  the  house 
she  encountered  a  solitary  individual  walking  towards  her. 
It  was  Delia's  tutor.  Since  the  unfortunate  day  on  which 
he  had  taken  up  his  duties  the  young  man  had  received 
no  invitation  to  take  another  meal  at  her  table.  On  the 
only  occasion  of  his  being  thus  honoured  he  had  not  been 
a  success. 

However,  the  sight  of  his  lonely  figure  touched  a  chord 
in  her  now.  To-day  for  the  first  time  she  was  troubled 
with  misgiving  as  to  the  infallibility  of  her  judgment. 
Three  days  ago  she  would  not  have  been  able  to  support 
the  suggestion  that  her  beautifully-balanced  reason  could 
lead  her  astray.  Her  experience  was  too  wide,  her  insight 
too  searching.  Did  they  not  render  her  invulnerable  to 
error  ?     This  morning,  however,  she  was  not  so  sure. 

226 


A   SHORT   EXCURSUS 

There  came  into  her  mind  a  faint  analogy  between  the 
man  walking  towards  her  with  his  eyes  on  the  earth  and 
the  two  women  she  had  lately  seen  in  Hampden  Road, 
London,  N.  His  slightness,  his  paleness,  his  shabbiness, 
the  self-effacing  air  of  his  exterior  all  contributed  to  the 
comparison.  Thoughts  of  an  uncomfortable  intimacy 
sprang  loose  in  her ;  ludicrous  thoughts,  grotesque,  farcical 
thoughts,  which  had  never  dared  to  obtrude  before  in 
that  complacent  inteUigence.  They  began  insolently, 
obstreperously  to  compare  her  own  private  lot  with  his. 

She  had  had  a  comfortable  carriage  and  a  fleet  pair 
of  horses  to  bear  her  the  four  miles  from  Cuttisham.  This 
young  man,  the  denizen  of  an  inferior  orbit,  would  have 
to  be  borne  the  same  four  miles  on  the  soles  of  his  feet. 
In  ten  minutes  she  would  be  sitting  down  to  a  solid  meal ; 
this  young  man,  if  he  pursued  a  dihgent  career,  might 
hope  to  do  the  same  in  something  under  an  hour  and  a 
quarter.  In  his  case,  however,  the  nature  of  the  meal 
might  prove  a  little  problematical.  He  had  already 
walked  four  miles  that  morning,  and  had  spent  several 
hours  thereafter  in  toiling  with  his  brain,  an  exhausting 
form  of  labour.  She,  on  the  other  hand,  began  the  duties 
of  her  day  when  she  drank  a  cup  of  tea  in  bed  at  a  quarter 
to  eight.  She  had  submitted  to  be  dressed  by  somebody 
else  about  an  hour  later  ;  had  taken  breakfast  at  half-past 
nine  ;  had  spent  the  remainder  of  the  morning  in  a  little 
gossip,  in  a  little  shopping,  in  driving  to  the  railway  station, 
in  sitting  on  the  cushions  of  a  first-class  compartment, 
and  in  driving  from  it. 

It  is  true  that  this  picture  of  their  divergent  lots  was 
a  trifle  over-coloured.  But  that  was  essential  ;  a  trick 
of  the  impertinent  person,  the  artist.  Without  a  measure 
of  incisive  exaggeration  no  picture  can  count  on  its  appeal. 
A  less  graphic  parallel,  and  our  humane  lady  would  not 
now  have  been  in  the  act  of  demanding  of  herself  the 
reason  why  the  hard-working  fellow  could  not  have  received 
the  common  piece  of  courtesy  at  her  hands  of  being  allowed 
to  eat  at  her  table  every  time  he  came. 

When  the  young  man  came  near,  and  took  his  eyes 
from  the  earth  and  looked  at  her  vaguely,  with  a  faintly 
perceptible  doubt  as  to  whether  she  would  choose  to  see 

227 


BROKE    OF   COVENDEN 

him,  Mrs.  Broke  stopped  her  carriage.     She  beckoned  to 
Porter  to  come  to  her. 

"  Good  morning,  Mr.  Porter.  Will  you  not  return  to 
luncheon  ?  " 

"  Thank  you  very  much,"  said  the  young  man  rather 
abstractedly,  "  but  I  am  in  no  immediate  need.  I  have 
an  irrepressible  habit  of  providing  for  myself.  I  enjoy 
the  sensation  of  doing  three  things  at  once.  I  eat,  walk, 
and  think." 

He  exhibited  a  small  packet  of  white  tissue  paper. 

Mrs.  Broke  made  a  gesture. 

"  You  are  indeed  a  man  of  resources,"  she  said  archly. 
"  But  if  you  do  not  return  with  me  to-day,  I  shall  think 
you  are  angry  with  me.  You  have  been  coming  out  here 
for  more  than  a  month,  and  yet  my  unpardonable  stupidity 
has  driven  you  to  these  expedients.  But,  really,  I  must 
blame  you  a  little  also.  You  ought  to  have  stayed  to 
luncheon  every  day  as  a  matter  of  course.  Promise  me 
you  will  never,  never  wait  for  an  invitation  again.  Get 
in,  please,  and  say  you  forgive  me." 

In  the  face  of  such  a  charming  humble  insistence,  Mr. 
Porter  was  fain  to  get  in  and  say  he  did  forgive  the  melli- 
fiuous  lady.  She  gave  him  the  place  of  honour  beside  her, 
and  prattled  to  him  dulcetly  upon  the  subject  of  litera- 
ture. 

At  the  luncheon  table  the  family  were  found  to  be  in 
full  assembly.  Mrs.  Broke  piloted  Mr.  Porter  to  a  seat, 
and  with  a  gracious  bow  that  embraced  her  husband,  Miss 
Wayling,  and  her  girls,  she  took  a  place  by  his  side.  And 
there  was  at  least  one  fortunate  aspect  to  her  hardly 
agreeable  preoccupation  with  him.  His  presence  there, 
under  her  wing,  freed  her  for  the  time  being  from  embar- 
rassing questions  as  to  the  nature  of  the  business  that  had 
summoned  her  to  London  so  suddenly. 

"  Now  tell  me  about  your  work,  Mr.  Porter,"  she  said, 
while  the  young  man  was  fishing  for  a  pickled  onion  with 
a  long-handled  fork. 

"  I  am  afraid,"  said  Mr.  Porter,  with  a  puckered  coun- 
tenance, after  twice  failing  to  spear  a  fat  one  on  which 
he  had  set  his  mind,  "  I  am  afraid  my  work  is  not  easy  to 
describe.     Unless    one    happens    to   have   complete   sym- 

22S 


A   SHORT   EXCURSUS 

pathy  with  my  point  of  view,  it  were  best  perhaps  that  I 
did  not  attempt  the  task." 

The  sUghtest  possible  dart  of  anger  replaced  the  bland 
affability  in  the  face  of  his  questioner.  There  he  went 
again  !  His  matter-of-fact  tone  might  do  something  to 
blunt  the  edge  of  his  too-palpable  rudeness,  but  it  could 
not  obliterate  the  snub.  Plainly  the  egregious  fellow 
had  meant  to  convey  that  his  opinion  of  her  understanding 
was  so  poor  that  he  could  find  a  more  profitable  means  of 
using  his  time  than  by  treating  her  seriously. 

She  hardly  knew  when  she  had  been  so  annoyed.  It 
was  a  wholly  new  experience  for  a  hostess  of  her  felicity 
and  finesse  to  be  patronized  by  a  mere  boy  at  her  own 
table.  However,  as  she  had  a  craving  for  the  present  to 
play  the  part  of  Lady  Bountiful  in  her  dealings  with  all 
and  sundry,  she  set  herself  steadily  to  look  past  his  lack 
of  manners,  and  determined  to  push  forward  the  good  work 
of  moral  and  intellectual  enlightenment.  He  was  a  bear, 
a  boor,  but  that  should  not  deter  her.  The  crown  of  mar- 
tyrdom she  would  be  called  on  to  wear  in  the  endeavour 
would  be  in  the  nature  of  a  penance  for  many  years  of 
blind  intolerance  towards  his  class  and  those  still  lower. 

"  I  do  not  wonder,"  she  said,  with  so  perfect  an  inflection 
of  humility  that  it  could  only  have  sounded  another  note 
in  the  most  delicately  educated  ear,  "  that  you  should 
think  so  meanly  of  me.  My  futile  attempts  to  rise  to 
your  level  must  strike  you  as  impertinent.  But  women, 
you  know,  are  intrepid.  Ignorant,  I  fear,  is  the  masculine 
name.     As  a  sex  we  are  apt  to  overrate  our  strength." 

"  This  is  a  question  of  temperament  rather  than  of 
capacity,"  said  the  young  man,  with  a  slight  air  of  pre- 
occupation that  his  patroness  was  only  too  quick  to  resent. 
"  It  has  no  reference  whatever  to  the  power  of  your  intel- 
lect, but  simply  to  its  emotional  character.  It  has  no 
sentiment  for  literature." 

"  I  confess  myself  mystified,"  said  Mrs.  Broke.  "  I 
read  a  great  deal,  and  I  pride  myself  in  very  good  books, 
in  books  that  have  outlived  criticism." 

"  So  I  have  perceived.  Upon  that  I  base  my  calcula- 
tion." 

"  My  mystification  increases." 
229 


BROKE    OF    COVENDEN 

"  I  would  wish  to  imply  that  you  do  not  approach  the 
greatest  among  books  in  the  highest  spirit  of  the  devotee." 

"  I  read  Greek  tragedy  in  the  original  tongue." 

"  Forgive  me  if  I  suggest  that  you  read  it  in  the  spirit 
in  which  you  read  the  daily  newspaper." 

"  You  do  me  less  than  justice  if  you  hold  me  insensible 
to  its  matchless  qualities." 

"  You  study  it  as  a  text-book,  but  the  unique  nature 
of  its  art  is  a  dead  letter  to  you.  If  I  may  say  so,  you 
approach  literature  from  a  purely  practical,  dare  I  say 
mercantile,  standpoint.  You  read  books  for  what  you 
can  take  from  them ;  you  do  not  read  them  for  what 
you  can  take  to  them." 

"  Surely  a  paradoxical  saying." 

"  Paradox  is  only  truth  walking  backwards.  But  I 
have  not  expressed  myself  very  clearly.  I  wanted  to 
imply  that  for  a  person  with  my  outlook  there  is  no  hope 
for  those  who  only  go  to  literature  in  quest  of  the  hard 
fact — and  yet  that  does  not  half  express  what  I  mean." 

"  But  surely  we  acquire  from  books  ?  If  I  understand 
you  aright,  you  would  have  them  acquire  from  us." 

"  Do  not  let  us  be  too  literal.  Literature  assists  our 
mental  development  in  much  the  same  manner  that  a 
plate  of  cold  beef  and  pickled  onions  assists  our  physical. 
But  in  the  mere  acquisition  of  knowledge  it  can  hardly 
be  said  to  count.  Books  are  no  more  than  so  many  bundles 
of  soiled  paper.  We  do  not  learn  any  more  from  them 
than  from  a  dead  cow  and  a  spiced  vegetable.  One  living 
human  mind,  yours  or  mine,  counts  for  more  than  all  the 
wisdom  collected  and  inscribed  upon  the  sheepskins  of 
antiquity." 

"  A  question  of  terms,  is  it  not  ?  That  particular 
generalization  is  obvious  to  everybody.  Let  us  come 
down  to  the  particular.  You  would  not  say  that  my 
mind  or  yours  could  do  anything  for  Shakespeare  ?  " 

"  You  must  forgive  me  if  I  do  not  agree.  Books  like 
Shakespeare's  are  written  in  cypher ;  they  cannot  be 
read  at  aU  without  a  key.  And  the  key  is — your  heart 
and  mine.  Even  he  in  the  most  perfect  expression  of 
his  spirit,  the  amplest  expression  the  world  has  known, 
can  only  hope  to  indicate  a  few  fresh  courses  that  the 

200 


A   SHORT   EXCURSUS 

emotional,  the  reflective,  the  imaginative  parts  of  us  are 
to  go  upon.  Lear  teaches  us  nothing  with  which  we 
were  not  perfectly  acquainted  long  before  he  made  his 
kingdom  over  to  his  daughters.  But  when  the  sufferings 
of  the  enfeebled  and  insane  old  man  melt  our  blood  into 
tears,  we  have  added  a  fresh  fact  to  the  aggregate  of  the 
world's  experience.  When  I  see  the  old  man,  my  father, 
holding  that  heart-moving  history  in  his  hand,  and  the 
tears  are  shining  on  his  cheeks,  I  know  that  many  infinite 
moments  such  as  these  have  gone  to  the  making  of  the 
bewilderingly  complex  mechanism  that  he  calls  his  son. 
Forgive  the  egotism.  It  is  the  curse  of  persons  born 
under  my  unlucky  star." 

"  I  am  very  sensible  of  the  honour  of  these  confidences. 
But  I  accuse  you  of  basing  your  calculation  on  the  as- 
sumption that  the  mind  of  every  reader  has  this  special 
endowment.  Surely  every  mind  cannot  have  it ;  my 
own,  for  instance." 

"  There  is  my  point.  Nature  has  not  given  you  the 
key  to  the  cypher.  It  is  the  root  of  our  argument.  You 
will  remember  it  arose  when  I  said  I  could  not  tell  you 
of  my  work." 

"  May  I  not  still  have  a  sympathetic  interest  in  it  ? 
Only  genius  may  love,  but  surely  the  most  pedestrian 
of  earth-walkers  may  admire." 

"  Yes  ;  perhaps  I  am  too  arbitrary.  But  even  your 
person  of  taste  is  but  a  second-hand  admirer.  Would 
Shakespeare  occupy  his  present  place  in  the  national 
esteem  unless  Mr.  Jones  and  Mr.  Smith  and  several 
thousands  of  other  persons  of  similar  renown  and  credit 
had  dinned  his  pre-eminence  into  our  ears  ?  " 

"  He  would  not,  and  I  hope  you  identify  yourself  with 
the  national  obtuseness  ?  " 

"  That  is  true  courage  ;  but  it  indicates  the  divergence 
of  our  ways.  And  you  force  me  to  concede  that  the  time 
we  devote  to  him  in  the  stalls  of  the  Lyceum  Theatre  is 
not  wasted.  Irving  is  as  near  the  real  Shakespeare  as 
Pope  is  near  the  real  Homer,  but  their  rule  of  thumb 
interpretations  have  their  uses." 

"  Arrogance;  surely  ?  Is  it  the  arrogance  of  genius 
one  hears  so  much  about  ?  " 

231 


BROKE    OF    COVEN  DEN 

"  I  begin  to  fear  it.  Of  late  I  have  grown  so  impatient , 
Every  battle  a  man  wins  for  his  art  reacts  upon  hisi 
suavity." 

"  You  practise  the  art  of  literature  ?  " 

"  Perhaps,  yes.  I  strive  and  strive,  but  generally  have 
to  hurl  the  pen  out  of  my  clumsy  fingers  with  tears  of 
chagrin." 

"  You  interest  me.  Tell  me  what  great  end  you  have 
in  view  ?  " 

"  The  end  will  seem  trivial,  yet  I  assure  you  I  find  it 
vastly  difficult.  I  seek  to  gain  the  power  to  express  in 
a  simple  formula,  but  in  a  formula  that  is  sufficiently 
adequate,  a  few  of  those  adventures  of  the  spirit  that  make 
the  Dream,  the  Phantasm,  the  Chimera,  the  What-you- 
will  I  call  Existence  at  once  a  heaven  and  a  hell.  Please 
forgive  a  little  turgidity." 

"  You  are  a  poet  ?  " 

"  I  have  no  wings,  alas  !  I  cannot  soar.  Therefore  m}" 
ideas,  that  no  doubt  have  been  the  common  propert} 
of  man  since  he  first  scratched  his  thoughts  on  stone,  have 
to  be  content  with  a  humbler  vehicle.  But  this  is  vain 
and  foolish.  My  reticence  is  cast  aside  before  the  cruel 
eyes  of  the  irreverent.  I  stand  revealed  a  coxcomb  ;  but 
rather  would  I  beg  you  to  take  it,  that  flushed  a  little  with 
my  first  victory  I  do  not  feel  quite  the  same  harsh  neces- 
sity for  silence. 

"  Why  this  diffidence,  my  friend  ?  You  overwhelm 
me  with  interest.  What  is  this  maiden  victory  to  which 
you  allude  ?  " 

"  There  was  something,  perhaps  quite  trivial  in  itself, 
on  which  I  sought  to  lay  my  finger  in  the  work  of  this  very 
Shakespeare,  this  Chinese  puzzle  we  are  never  tired  of 
trying  to  solve.  The  thing  was  not  new  ;  it  must  have 
been  in  the  minds  of  all  men  of  perception  since  Heming 
and  Condell  printed  their  folio.  Still,  I  had  never  seen  it 
set  forth  in  plain  terms.  Even  Goethe  had  not  expressed 
it  exactl}'.  It  could  be  traced  in  the  minds  of  them  all, 
floating  disembodied  and  impalpable,  a  will  o'  the  wisp 
that  eluded  all  efforts  to  capture  and  embalm  it  in  sentient 
speech.  Charles  Lamb  came  the  nearest ;  but  he 
approached  half  unconsciously  in  the  casual  way  that  was 

232 


A   SHORT   EXCURSUS 

his  habit,  and  withdrew  his  hands  ahnost  at  the  moment 
his  strong  but  so  whimsical  fingers  seemed  but  to  need 
to  stretch  out  to  take  it  in  their  grasp.  Now  I  felt  in  my 
own  mind  that  our  English  tongue  was  a  fine  enough 
medium  by  which  to  express  it.  The  thesis  was  simple 
enough.  What  had  to  be  said  was  cut  in  the  mind  like 
a  cameo,  yet  it  defied  a  reduction  to  terms.  However, 
in  the  intrepidity  of  his  youth,  one  Alfred  Porter  rose  up 
and  grappled  with  it.  At  first  it  seemed  in  danger  of 
becoming  the  '  Figure  in  the  Carpet,'  that  little  story  by 
Henry  James.  Thirty-three  times  he  wrestled  with  it ; 
thirtj^-three  times  he  was  overthrown.  On  each  occasion 
he  burnt  his  failure  with  a  grimmer  determination  in  his 
heart.  Sometimes  it  was  with  utter  weariness  and  sick- 
ness of  the  spirit,  but  never  with  despair.  At  the  thirty- 
fourth  attempt  he  rang  the  bell.  He  could  hear  it  tinkle 
faintly  but  distinctly.  His  victory,  however,  has  had 
the  unhappy  consequence  of  giving  him  an  even  stauncher 
belief  in  himself  than  he  had  before." 

"  May  I  ask  had  your  victory  any  fruits  other  than  your 
own  personal  satisfaction  ?  " 

"  Yes,  indeed.  That  is  the  strange  part ;  otherwise 
the  whole  matter  would  have  been  a  perfect  episode,  fit 
for  Flaubert.  I  sent  it,  it  was  but  a  small  thing,  ten 
thousand  words  or  so,  to  the  editor  of  the  International 
Review,  that  great  journal  for  the  upholding  of  the  honour 
of  literature,  which  never  yet  has  been  found  unworthy 
of  its  mission.  That  act  of  itself  was  presumptuous,  for 
I  had  no  credential  other  than  my  determination  to  succeed. 
And  here  is  the  prosaic  part.  The  editor  has  offered  to 
appoint  me  to  his  review  at  a  salary  of  £800  a  year." 

"  Of  course  you  repudiated  his  offer  with  scorn  ?  " 

"  Alas  !  I  am  afraid  I  am  not  sufficiently  Philistine. 
I  was  not  in  the  least  insulted,  I  confess.  I  accepted  his 
offer  with  gratitude.  And  one  could  read  the  generosity 
of  the  man's  nature.  He  had  never  seen  me  ;  to  him  I 
was  meaningless,  apart  from  the  fact  that  I  had  a  pair 
of  eyes  to  look  at  hie,  and  a  spirit  that  was  determined  to 
express  what  they  saw.  And  that  was  enough.  I  might 
have  leapt  at  a  hundred  pounds  a  year  for  all  he  knew, 
as  indeed  I  should." 

233 


BROKE    OF    COVENDEN 

"  This  is  very  singular,  is  it  not  ?  One  understood  that 
you  lions  of  literature  despised  the  sordid  pounds  and 
shillings." 

"  In  a  sense  perhaps  ;  but  I  think  we  make  a  point  of 
accepting  them  when  they  come  our  way.  They  don't 
come  too  often.  We  generally  have  '  to  go  through  the 
mill.'  " 

"  Have  you  had  '  to  go  through  the  mill,'  Mr.  Porter, 
if  the  question  is  a  fair  one  ?  " 

"  I  have  had  to  fight,  and  have  to  do  so  still,  but  I  do 
not  forget  that  it  is  a  confhct  in  which  others  have  lost 
more  blood." 

"  Pray  tell  me  of  it,  if  I  may  hope  so  to  be  honoured 
with  your  confidence.  You  interest  me  painfully.  I 
understood  that  your  father  was  in  fairly  easy  circum- 
stances." 

"  On  the  contrary,  his  circumstances  have  never  been 
even  fairly  easy.  He  exists,  and  that  is  all.  He  exists 
with  a  few  first  editions,  a  few  rare  books  in  his  back 
sitting-room.  When  stress  of  financial  weather  forces 
him  to  part  with  one  of  these  it  is  like  the  severing  of  his 
right  hand.  He  is  a  dear,  queer,  impracticable  old  man, 
with  just  a  saving  touch  of  the  heroic.  When  the  idea 
came  into  his  mind  that  his  son  must  go  to  the  university, 
he  proposed  to  send  him  there  by  parting  with  his 
treasures.  He  declined  to  go,  however,  at  that  great 
price.  I  knew  that  the  development  of  the  powers  with 
which  he  credited  me  was  the  only  undertaking  that 
could  have  led  him  to  the  extreme  step." 

"  He  felt  you  were  marked  out  for  great  things  ?  " 

"  In  a  way  he  did.  My  father  is  a  singular  man.  He 
belongs  to  the  company  of  the  '  mute,  inglorious  Miltons.' 
He  has  the  emotional  and  intellectual  equipment  of  a 
poet,  but  has  no  more  power  of  utterance  than  a  tin  trumpet 
or  a  penny  whistle.  He  has  the  truest  instinct  for  all 
that  has  been  finely  uttered,  but  the  power  of  utterance 
itself  is  denied  to  him." 

"  And  he  makes  a  tragedy  of  it  ?  " 

"  No ;  he  is  too  sane.  Perhaps,  as  he  grew  old,  he  might 
have  allowed  it  to  embitter  him  had  not  the  recognition 
of  what  he  supposed  to  be  my  budding  powers  done  so 

234 


A   SHORT   EXCURSUS 

much  to  reconcile  him  to  his  fate.  He  told  me  this  morning 
that  since  I  received  that  letter  from  the  editor  of  the 
Review,  nearly  a  week  ago,  his  life  has  grown  larger. 
But  with  all  this  wonderful  solicitude  he  is  a  more  jealous 
critic  of  my  work  than  I  am  myself.  His  taste  is 
exquisite,  and  his  spirit  seems  to  burn  purer,  intenser 
because  of  its  suppression." 

"  Do  I  gather  that  he  grants  this  power  of  utterance 
to  his  son  ?  " 

"  I  think  I  may  say  yes,  although  it  argues  much 
courage  and  insight  for  one  of  my  father's  austerity 
to  detect  the  true  note  in  the  child's  first  performances 
upon  a  comb  and  a  piece  of  tissue  paper," 

"  His  reward  is  assured  to  him  already.  But  tell  me 
a  little  of  yourself,  your  uphill  struggle.  May  I  ask  how 
you  contrived  to  maintain  yourself  at  the  university  ?  " 

The  young  man  laughed.  There  was  no  joy  in  him, 
however. 

He  hesitated. 

"  I  beg  your  pardon,  but  may  I  assume  that  it  was  neces- 
sary that  you  should  undergo  a  course  at  the  university  to 
prepare  yourself  for  the  end  you  had  in  view  ?  " 

"  Both  my  father  and  I  thought  so  at  the  time.  There 
was  the  glamour  of  the  name,  and  I  am  afraid  we  had  both 
idealized  its  functions  whilst  remaining  in  perfect  ignorance 
of  its  methods.  It  had  been  a  kind  of  ambition  of  my 
father's  to  see  a  son  of  his  at  the  university,  and  in  my 
case  he  thought  this  aspiration  to  be  essential.  We  knew 
no  one  who  had  been  there,  no  one  who  could  disabuse 
our  minds  of  our  heresies.  " 

"  And  you  regretted  it  ?  " 

"  Not  altogether.  But  the  game  was  not  worth  the 
candle.  It  may  have  increased  any  little  grit  there  was 
in  me,  but  I  think  I  can  say  with  justice  that  at  the  present 
moment  I  owe  less  than  nothing  to  my  academic  training. 
It  retarded  my  development.  I  had  to  lose  the  habit 
of  looking  at  life  with  an  eye-glass.  I  had  to  unlearn 
much  that  I  was  taught  before  I  could  recapture  my 
power  of  vision.  It  is  preserved  intact,  I  hope  and  be- 
lieve ;  but  it  is  because  my  honest  natural  eyesight  has 
been  able  to  reassert  itself." 

235 


BROKE    OF    COVENDEN 

**  You  fill  me  with  surprise.  It  is  not  usual  for  so  young 
a  man  to  have  such  a  definite  outlook.  You  appear  to 
understand  clearly  what  you  are  about  to  accomplish, 
and  the  best  mesns  to  take  of  accompUshing  it.  I  sup- 
pose now  you  have  accepted  this  suggestion  of  the  editor's, 
you  will  turn  your  face  to  the  east  and  make  for  the  Mecca 
of  the  literary  man." 

"  I  have  promised  to  take  up  my  duties  there  in  a  month's 
time.  I  am  glad  to  have  had  this  opportunity  of  talking 
to  you,  since  after  then  I  fear  it  will  no  longer  be  possible 
for  me  to  coach  Miss  Broke.  I  have  written  to  Lady 
Bosket  to  say  so." 

"  I  am  sure  it  will  be  a  misfortune  for  the  child,  although 
she  has  had  the  privilege  of  receiving  a  certain  amount  of 
your  instruction.     Did  you  find  her  hopeless  R" 

"  On  the  contrary,  I  could  not  have  wished  for  an  apter 
pupil." 

"  This  is  praise  indeed.  One  feels,  Mr.  Porter,  that  it 
is  not  easy  for  you  to  bestow  praise." 

"  Perhaps  you  are  right.  But  in  this  case,  if  it  may 
be  any  sort  of  satisfaction  to  you  to  know  it,  I  will  confess 
I  have  found  Miss  Broke  peculiarly  interesting.  She  is 
the  first  of  her  sex  with  whom  I  have  been  brought  into 
intimate  contact,  and  it  has  been  an  experience.  Besides, 
I  have  a  feeling,  you  must  please  forgive  it,  that  you  do 
not  extend  quite  the  same  justice  to  her  as,  for  example, 
you  do  to  myself.  One  feels  it  to  be  a  pity,  for  she  does 
not  deserve  to  be  underrated.  Her  sympathies  are  so 
quick,  so  remarkable." 

"  You  relieve  me.  I  had  nearly  made  up  my  mind 
that  the  child  was  wholly  destitute  of  intelligence." 

"It  is  painful  to  hear  you  say  that.  Such  an  opinion 
is,  under  your  pardon,  unwarrantable.  The  graces  of  her 
mind  may  not  be  set  forth  to  the  public  view,  so  that  every 
passer-b}'  may  become  acquainted  with  them  ;  but  per- 
chance on  that  account  they  are  the  more  exquisite,  the 
more  permanent.  In  judicious  hands — in  hands  of  a 
requisite  tenderness,  of  a  wise  and  patient  encouragement, 
hers  might  prove  a  particularly  full  and  complete  and 
satisfactory  life.  But  I  am  sure  that  if  this  is  not  her 
fate,  if  the  hands  she  should  happen  to  fall  into  should 

236 


A   SHORT   EXCURSUS 

be  ruder  and  coarser,  her  life  will  not  be  a  success.  I 
confess  that  I  tremble  for  her.  It  seems  almost  inevit- 
able that  she  should  be  sacrificed  on  the  altar  of  the  average 
man,  that  blundering,  well-meaning  ruffian  whose  mind 
is  merged  in  his  dinner.  For  a  creature  of  sensibility 
all  compact  to  be  the  victim  of  some  such  rough  and  honest 
rogue  would  be  a  dire  thing.  Such  fragile  creatures  must 
be  nurtured  carefully.  Perfect  co-operative  sympathy 
must  be  their  daily  food.  One  foresees  that  the  honest 
rogue  with  whom  she  may  mate  will  act  on  that  excellent 
matrimonial  principle  of  giving  her  clothes  in  exchange 
for  her  cookery.  One  fears  that  in  her  case  it  will  not  do. 
He  will  have  to  feed  as  well  as  clothe  her.  He  will  have 
to  feed  her  out  of  his  own  hands,  with  the  choicest  blood 
of  his  spirit." 

"  You  astonish  me  !  I  had  not  thought  that  the  child's 
nature  would  make  demands  of  this  kind.  I  tremble 
for  her  myself." 

So  absorbed  had  these  two  alien  persons  been  in  their 
conversation  that  they  had  already  long  outstayed  every- 
body at  the  luncheon  table.  Mrs.  Broke  had  basked  in 
the  sensation  of  a  slightly  malicious  triumph.  The  some- 
what aggressive  young  man  might  frankly  despise  her 
intellectual  equipment,  but  she  knew  how  to  make  him 
lay  bare  his  own.  Her  art  masquerading  in  the  livery 
of  a  ready  sympathy  had  completely  broken  down  the 
barrier  of  his  reticence.  She  had  made  him  talk  to  her. 
He  had  tacitly  confessed  that  he  had  revealed  more  of 
himself  to  her  already  than  he  had  to  any  other  person. 
At  the  same  time  he  had  interested  her  keenly.  He  was 
a  man  with  a  personality. 

When  they  rose  and  repaired  to  the  drawing-room  our 
redoubtable  lady  was  in  better  conceit  with  herself  than 
she  had  been  all  that  day.  In  a  measure  her  talk  with 
the  young  man  had  restored  something  of  her  complacence. 
She  had  enjoyed  a  success,  almost  a  triumph.  Insensibly, 
on  the  top  of  the  proud  thought,  the  young  man  was 
hoisted  in  her  estimation.  Whoever  he  was  and  what- 
ever he  was  he  was  emphatically  a  person  to  be  reckoned 
with.  He  was  no  fool,  no  weakling.  Nay,  he  was  a 
fighter.     He  was  a  born  wTestler  with  adversity.     She 

237 


BROKE    OF    COVENDEN 

was  conscious  of  a  feeling  of  exhilaration  in  having  passed 
an  hour  in  talking  with  him,  He  had  a  vigour  that  lifted 
up  the  heart  like  a  mountain  breeze. 

As  a  manifestation  of  her  agreeable  disposition  towards 
him,  his  patroness  asked  the  young  man  presently  whether 
he  had  seen  a  fragment  of  the  remains  of  the  old  hall,  in 
an  outlying  comer  of  the  park.  They  were  said  to  have 
an  antiquarian  interest.  On  his  replying  that  he  had 
not,  but  that  it  would  dehght  him  to  have  the  privilege, 
Delia  was  summoned,  and  it  was  suggested  to  her  that 
she  should  conduct  her  tutor  across  the  ravine  to  the  hill 
on  which  it  stood.  Neither  being  reluctant  to  accede  to 
this  plan,  it  was  not  long  before  they  were  on  their  way 
to  the   ruin. 

"  An  incendiary,"  was  Mrs.  Broke's  sudden  comment 
to  herself  as  she  watched  him  retire  from  the  room.  "  I 
cannot  remember  when  I  have  been  so  arrested  by  a 
personality.  His  force  and  vigour  are  a  little  discon- 
certing, and  that  sense  of  the  indomitable  he  manages 
to  instil  into  one  might  some  day  prove  inconvenient. 
It  might  prove  a  serious  thing  for  some  of  us  if  he  turned 
his  attention  to  politics.  It  is  not  a  little  singular  that 
these  children  of  the  people  so  often  possess  the  secret 
of  this  masterful  force  which  ours  so  often  lack." 

Suddenly  she  laughed.  A  whimsical  idea  had  insinuated 
itself  in  the  mind  of  the  contemplative  lady. 

"  Is  it  not  foolhardy  ?  "  she  thought.  "  Is  it  not  almost 
like  the  courting  of  a  second  disaster  to  go  out  of  one's 
way  to  throw  the  wretched  child  into  the  company  of  such 
a  firebrand  ?  " 

The  idea  amused  her  ;  but  all  the  same,  so  inveterate 
was  her  habit  of  wisdom,  that  she  was  by  no  means  siire 
that  she  would  have  lent  her  countenance  to  the  expedition 
had  this  grotesque  thought  occurred  to  her  sooner. 


238 


CHAPTER  XIX 
Two  on  a  Tower 

FOOTING  it  over  the  young  and  green  grass  of  spring, 
Delia  and  her  tutor  were  not  long  in  crossing  the 
ravine  and  in  pressing  up  the  steep  hill  on  which  was  set 
all  that  remained  of  the  former  stronghold  of  this  ancient 
race  of  Broke.  It  was  noteworthy  that  this  old  hall  or 
castle  had  this  in  common  with  the  great  houses  of  anti- 
quity :  its  architect  had  chosen  one  of  the  fair  spots  of 
earth  on  which  to  set  it. 

It  stood  on  a  grass-grown  eminence,  commanding  a 
vaew  of  the  rich  vales  and  pasture  land  that  stretched 
beneath.  The  lush  meadows,  fat  with  increase,  drowsed 
below  ;  a  clear  stream  shining  in  the  afternoon  sun  mean- 
dered from  little  copse  to  little  copse,  in  which  the  spring 
birds  sang ;  the  steeples  of  churches  in  neighbouring  villages 
were  remotely  visible,  "  bosomed  high  in  tufted  trees  "  ; 
while  every  natural  object  seemed  to  point  towards  and 
to  emphasize  the  uncommon  wisdom  which  had  chosen  for 
a  hermitage  this  fair  place. 

"  Ah,  those  old  builders,  what  a  cunning  they  had !  " 
said  the  young  man  as  he  toiled  up  to  a  piece  of  crumbling 
masonry,  surrounded  by  ferns.  "  They  only  chose  the 
places  fit  to  receive  of  their  best.  It  is  not  easy  to  get 
here,  but  once  on  these  heights  one  is  more  than  repaid. 
You  come  of  a  favoured  race,  Miss  Broke.  Who  can  con- 
ceive anything  more  delightful  than  to  have  an  enchanted 
castle,  as  I  am  sure  this  must  have  been,  to  dwell  in  for 
a  thousand  years  or  so  ?  " 

"  I  do  not  think  we  have  been  any  happier  because  of  it," 

239 


BROKE    OF    COVENDEN 

said  Delia.     "  It  has   made  no  difference  to  us  as  far  as  I 

can  see." 

"  One  would  have  expected  it  to  breed  a  whole  race  of 
poets  and  seers,  grave  worshippers  of  nature,  and  those 
who  never  slept  in  their  endeavours  to  surprise  her  secrets." 

"  Instead  of  which,"  said  Delia,  who  long  ago  had  learnt 
to  speak  to  him  in  terms  of  an  ampler  equality  than  when 
she  had  known  him  first,  "  it  seems  to  have  bred  a  race 
whose  first  pleasure  has  been  to  destroy  her  handiwork. 
If  as  a  race  we  have  been  foremost  in  anything  it  has  been 
as  hunters  and  soldiers — savage  men  who  have  had  a  passion 
for  destroying  or  maiming  their  fellows,  and  the  birds  of 
the  air,  and  the  animals  that  run  in  the  fields." 

"  A  severe  indictment,  but  not  an  unfair  one,  I  am 
afraid." 

He  caught  himself  musing  on  her  strange  air  of  vehemence. 

"  I  should  not  have  found  myself  making  it  a  month 
ago,"  said  Delia,  half  to  herself  and  hardly  intending  that 
he  should  hear. 

Looking  back  at  the  moment  on  that  short  period  which 
yet  seemed  so  long  a  time,  and  in  a  measure  so  fraught  with 
destiny,  she  guessed  how  great  was  the_  change  in  herself. 
She  had  developed  b}'  inordinate  strides.  She  was  a  child 
then,  a  little  timid  thing  peeping  out  of  the  door  of  the 
nursery  ;  she  was  now  a  woman  feeling  the  first  few  pre- 
monitory stiflings  of  the  world  upon  her  heart.  It  was  not 
quite  so  easy  to  breathe  God's  air  as  it  had  been  a  month 
ago. 

To-day  there  could  be  no  doubt  she  was  unhappy.  She 
was  too  simple  to  be  able  to  disguise  the  fact  that  her 
friend's  announcement  of  his  going  away  to  London  filled 
her  with  a  sense  of  loss.  From  the  first  morning  of  his 
coming  she  had  never  been  qviite  the  same.  There  was  in 
him  that  touch  of  mystery  that  was  so  haunting,  that 
personal  glamour  which  provokes  an  unrest  in  the  pulses, 
which  seems  to  hypnotise,  to  cast  a  spell.  It  was  not 
attraction,  not  fascination  altogether ;  but  a  stranger, 
more  magical  quality  which  evoked  an  emotion  in  his 
absence  which  even  his  presence  seemed  hardly  to  disperse. 

Never  had  she  wept  again  because  she  could  not  go  hunt- 
ing smce  that  first  memorable  morning  of  his  coming,  when 

240 


TWO    ON    A    TOWER 

he  had  wrung  her  small  secrets  out  of  her,  and  caused  her 
to  burn  her  treasures.  She  knew  that  long  ago  she  had 
learned  to  recognize  his  footfall  above  all  others  on  the 
tiles  of  the  hall.  She  also  knew  that  if  she  caught  the  notes 
of  his  voice  when  she  did  not  expect  to  hear  them  she  was 
startled  in  a  manner  she  had  never  been  conscious  of 
before.  These  were  slight  things,  very  trivial  phenomena, 
but  taken  in  conjunction  with  the  present  unquietness 
of  her  heart,  they  had  the  power  to  make  her  tremble. 
She  had  taken  them  for  signs  that  she  was  journeying 
perilously  into  that  mysterious  country  from  whose  bourn 
no  traveller  returns  unscarred. 

Unconsciously  the  days  of  his  coming  had  grown  to  be 
underlined  in  her  heart.  Those  days  on  which  he  did  not 
come  were  ineffectual,  incomplete.  On  those  days  there 
seemed  no  reason  why  she  should  ever  get  out  of  bed  in  the 
morning  and  undertake  the  ordeal  of  putting  on  her  clothes. 
Even  hunting,  that  intoxicating  sport,  had  begun  to  lose  its 
hold  upon  her.  It  took  on  the  same  drab  hues  as  the  rest 
of  life's  diurnal  affairs  when  her  friend  did  not  walk  out 
from  Cuttisham  to  bewilder  and  enchant  her.  He  seemed 
to  carry  a  special  atmosphere  of  his  own  about  him.  He 
was  so  assured,  so  definite  in  all  he  said  and  did  ;  he  was  so 
certain  of  himself.  He  did  not  appear  to  know  what 
faltering  or  stumbling  meant ;  and  it  was  impossible  to 
deny  any  secret  to  those  grave  kind  candid  humorous  eyes. 
Tender  eyes  they  were  too.  There  were  things  that  could 
soften  them  and  give  them  a  look  she  had  learnt  to  watch 
for.  They  were  not  given  to  passion.  They  were  too 
patient,  too  mild,  to  have  an  addiction  to  violence.  Some- 
times when  he  had  been  surprised  into  sudden  enthusiasms 
about  certain  things,  a  light  had  been  kindled  in  them  which 
she,  this  childish  worshipper  of  heroes,  liked  to  think  of  as 
a  something  splendid  and  imperishable.  And  once  or 
twice  at  some  tale  of  man's  inhumanity  to  man,  told  in  the 
daily  newspaper,  they  had  grown  so  hard  as  to  frighten 
her  more  than  a  little. 

Again  and  again  had  she  been  obliged  to  make  the  state- 
ment to  herself  that  he  was  a  much  more  complex  kind  of 
being  than  the  only  other  men  with  whom  she  was  familiar, 
her  father,  her  brother,  and  her  Uncle  Charles.     He  seemed 

241  Q 


BROKE    OF    COVENDEN 

to  have  more  component  parts ;  there  seemed  to  be  finer 
shades  of  meaning  in  him.  There  was  a  constant  occupation 
for  her  in  seeking  to  fathom  what  was  imphed  by  his  strange 
odd  face,  which  grew  stranger  and  more  odd  the  more  you 
looked  at  it.  It  was,  indeed,  a  perpetual  puzzle  and  mystery. 
When  she  investigated  her  father's  at  the  breakfast  table 
there  it  was  as  plain  as  print,  as  open  as  the  morning.  If 
she  looked  at  those  of  her  mother  and  her  sisters  it  was 
easy  to  read  exactly  what  they  were.  It  was  only  since  she 
had  come  to  know  her  friend,  and  had  been  baffled  by  him^ 
that  she  had  taken  to  doing  this  sort  of  thing.  Dimly  she 
felt  that  such  behaviour  was  vain  and  weak  and  unworthy, 
but  no  matter  how  she  tried  not  to  do  so  she  was  thinking 
perpetually  of  her  friend's  mysterious  face. 

Her  companion  sat  down  on  a  convenient  piece  of  the 
ruin,  and  took  off  his  hat.  Beads  of  sweat  speckled  his 
brow.  He  made  no  secret  of  the  fact  that  the  ascent  had 
distressed  him.  His  breathing  was  ridiculously  assertive. 
He  laughed  at  his  plight,  particularly  as  Delia  did  not  con- 
ceal her  surprise  at  it.  She  was  far  from  exhibiting  similar 
evidences.  She  looked  as  cool,  as  serene  as  a  young  fawn 
that  has  merely  leapt  over  a  brook. 

"  This  is  where  you  athletes  take  advantage  of  a  book- 
worm," he  said  with  a  whimsical  air.  "  It  is  preposterous 
of  my  heart  to  beat  in  this  manner  because  we  happen 
to  have  climbed  this  steep  hill  rather  smartly.  You 
do  not  seem  to  breathe  at  all.  Your  feet  skim  like  a 
bird's." 

"  I  did  not  think  that  such  a  little  exertion  would  dis- 
tress you,"  said  Delia.  "  We  ought  not  to  have  walked  so 
fast.     I  am  so  sorry." 

"  Odd,"  said  he,  "  how  any  inferiority  arising  from  a 
physical  cause  provokes  a  feeling  of  humiliation  in  us.  It 
annoys  me  that  I  should  be  sitting  in  this  plight  while  you 
do  not  appear  to  suffer  the  least  inconvenience.  I  think 
I  must  go  into  training,  as  you  athletes  would  say,  although 
walking  out  here  from  Cuttisham  three  times  a  week  has 
done  me  a  lot  of  good.  But  I  am  afraid  I  have  a  rooted 
objection  to  physical  exercise." 

"  How  strange  !  "  said  Delia,  "  when  perfect  fitness  is 
such  a  source  of  pleasure.     It  is  nicer  than  anything  I  know 

242 


TWO    ON    A    TOWER 

to  feel  one's  body  to  be  equal  to  the  most  arduou's  task.  I 
hope  you  do  not  despise  the  athlete." 

"  On  the  contrary,  he  or  she  provokes  my  admiration.  I 
love  to  witness  feats  that  involve  resolution  and  agility.  .  It 
gives  me  quite  a  fearful  pleasure,  although  I  will  not  say 
that  now  and  then  they  have  not  a  habit  of  ruffling  me  a 
little  also.  I  do  not  like  to  have  to  confess  myself  defeated 
in  anything." 

"  Arrogance,"  said  Delia,  with  a  wise  little  smile  and  shake 
of  the  head. 

"  I  agree,  I  agree." 

"  I  don't  think  I  would  ever  accuse  you  of  arrogance 
really,"  said  Delia,  determined  to  wipe  this  speck  of  dust 
off  her  idol. 

"  You  would  be  wrong,"  said  her  friend,  enjo5nng  her 
sudden  descent  into  the  serious.  "  It  is  the  besetting  sin 
of  the  genus.  We  self-centred  people  never  hesitate  to 
pit  ourselves  in  a  comparison  with  others,  and  when  we 
draw  it,  it  is  not  to  their  advantage,  I  can  assure  you.  If 
Such-a-one  can  do  a  certain  thing  I  can  do  it,  is  what  we 
say.  It  is  wrong,  it  is  deplorable  in  us,  but — but  ce  soni 
les  defaiUs  de  nos  qualites." 

The  young  man  was  in  higher  spirits  this  afternoon  than 
he  had  been  in  lately. 

"  You  could,"  said  Delia  wistfully.  "  I  believe  you  could 
do  anything  if  you  made  up  your  mind." 

"  You  are  quite  right,"  he  said,  a  good  deal  amused  by 
her  earnestness.  "  But  please  I  must  ask  you  not  to  make 
me  vainer  than  I  am  already." 

During  the  next  moment  Deha  became  the  victim  of  an 
idea.  There  was  a  hazardous  feat  connected  with  this 
ruin  which  she  and  her  five  sisters,  those  perfectly  intrepid 
open-air  creatures,  were  never  weary  of  attempting.  The 
ruin  consisted  of  a  single  tall  wall  some  twenty  feet  high. 
A  narrow  and  precarious  parapet  formed  the  top  of  it ; 
and  at  the  extreme  southern  end  the  crazy  remains  of 
what  had  once  been  a  hunting  tower  rose  sheer  to  the  sky, 
eighty  feet  from  the  top  of  the  wall  and  a  hundred  feet 
from  the  bank  on  which  they  were  standing  now.  Seen 
from  this  spot,  it  looked  an  incredibly  insecure  and  dizzy 
height.     Only  the  ivy  with  which  it  was  clad  seemed  to 

243 


BROKE    OF    COVENDEN 

hold  it  together.  The  tower  itself  was  so  bat-ridden  and 
far  gone  in  decay  that  its  mere  retention  of  the  power  to 
keep  itself  upright  seemed  a  direct  defiance  of  the  laws  of 
gravitation. 

However,  so  often  had  Delia  and  her  sisters  made  the 
not  very  difficult  ascent  of  the  lower  wall  itself,  and  so 
often  had  they  walked  the  precarious  coping  that  ran  along 
the  top  as  far  as  the  base  of  the  tower,  that  they  could  now 
perform  the  feat  with  the  ease,  the  certainty  of  an  acrobat 
crossing  a  tight-rope  with  a  man  in  a  wheelbarrow.  To 
the  uninitiated  it  had  a  delicious  appearance  of  daring,  but 
they  had  practised  it  so  often  that  it  had  become  as  simple 
as  the  trick  of  springing  into  a  saddle  out  of  the  hand  of 
their  father. 

The  hunting  tower  itself,  however,  was  much  more  diffi- 
cult to  overcome.  Times  without  number  had  they  set 
out  to  reach  the  weird  emblem  in  the  form  of  a  cross  that 
stood  at  the  top,  on  a  quaint  httle  platform.  Not  one  of 
them,  however,  had  ever  succeeded  in  making  her  foothold 
sufficiently  secure  in  that  decrepit  masonry  covered  with 
ivy  and  moss  which  was  its  only  staircase,  to  scale  the  full 
eighty  feet  of  this  crazy  and  wind-shaken  altitude.  She 
who  accomplished  that  hazardous  task  would  be  the 
recipient  of  everlasting  honour  from  her  five  sisters.  At 
present  the  record  was  held  by  the  indomitable  Joan,  who 
probably  no  more  fitted  by  physical  development  than  any- 
body else  to  enjoy  the  honour,  yet  did  so  by  sheer  force  of 
character.  The  point  she  had  touched  was  several  feet 
higher  than  that  of  the  no  less  indomitable  Philippa. 

It  hardly  admitted  of  question  that  the  plight  in  which 
her  friend  was  displayed  gave  Delia  the  idea.  In  mind  she 
felt  herself  to  be  his  inferior  to  a  cruel  degree.  But  in 
phj'Sique  there  could  be  no  doubt  she  was  immensely  his 
superior.  There  was  one  point  at  least  on  which  she  would 
not  have  to  bow  the  knee.  The  desire  to  make  the  most 
of  that  advantage  was  eminently  feminine,  nor  was  it  less 
so  that  she  should  be  possessed  by  an  aspiration  to  shine  in 
the  eyes  of  one  who  in  his  own  person  united  all  the  other 
Christian  virtues.  She  had  had  it  from  his  own  lips  that 
feats  of  an  athletic  prowess  excited  his  pleasure  and  his  envy. 
Surely  it  would  be  sweet  for  the  despised  she  to  arouse  his 

244 


TWO    ON    A    TOWER 

wonder  by  the  exhibition  of  a  personal  skill  which  he  could 
never  hope  to  acquire. 

With  creatures  of  impulse  thought  is  action.  The  idea 
once  flashed  across  her  mind,  it  would  not  allow  her  a 
moment  to  reflect.  In  a  second,  with  a  joyous,  defiant, 
carolling  little  laugh  she  ran  to  the  wall,  and  before 
the  unsuspecting  young  man  had  time  to  observe,  her 
birdlike  feet  were  scrambling  up  stone  by  stone  through  the 
moss  and  crannies.  By  the  time  her  companion  could 
rise  from  his  seat  on  the  bank  to  look  at  what  she  was  about 
she  was  already  on  the  parapet  of  the  wall  above  his  head. 

"  I  say,  I  say  !     What  are  you  doing  !  " 

Her  wild  feet  were  already  moving  along  that  narrow 
and  precarious  coping  which  formed  the  top.  Jauntily, 
joyously,  she  glided  across  with  exquisite  and  elastic  poise 
as  one  exultingly  unconscious  of  peril.  It  was  superb  ; 
but  the  startled  witness  felt  already  a  shock  of  nervous 
bewilderment. 

"  I  sa3'.  1  say,  Miss  Broke,  what  are  you  doing  !  " 

Miss  Broke  turned  an  apple-blossom  cheek  over  her 
shoulder  towards  him,  and  proceeded  to  look  down  upon  her 
friend  with  an  arch  laugh  lurking  in  the  corners  of  her  lips. 
The  notes  of  his  self-evident  alarm  floating  up  from  below 
were  as  wine  and  music  to  her. 

"  You  must  come  down,  you  know.  It  isn't  safe,  I  am 
sure  it  isn't  safe." 

She  paid  him  no  heed.  There  was  that  kind  of  madness 
in  her  pulses  which  his  startled  solicitude  increased. 
Pouting  with  mfectious  little  trills  of  joy,  her  winged  feet 
trip]ied  on  and  on  across  the  wall.  Her  petticoats  twinkled 
about  lier  ankles  like  the  motions  of  a  bird  with  a  white 
breast,  falling  and  rocketting.  Her  fair  curves  swayed 
in  the  sunlii,dit.  Once  she  made  a  roguish  pretence  of 
missine  her  footing,  and  as  the  heart  of  the  beholder  leapt 
in  sudden  agitation,  she  swung  round  on  her  audacious 
heels,  and  confronted  him  with  a  face  as  frankly  fearless,  as 
franklv  mischievous  as  ever  embla, zoned  tlie  vaunting 
spirit  of  woninn.  Slie  looked  as  tantalising  as  a  squirrel,  as 
bold  as  a  robin,  and  as  sure-footed  as  a  chamois  leaping 
along  the  face  of  the  Alps. 

Before  he  could  guess  whither  her  course  was  pointed, 

245 


BROKE    OF    COVENDEN 

she  had  reached  the  base  of  the  hunting  tower  at  the  far  end 

of  the  wall.  Immediately  her  deft  feet  began  to  climb  that 
dizzy  pinnacle.  In  vain  did  he  call  to  her,  now  in  tones  of 
horror.  She  did  not  stop  nor  hesitate,  nor  once  glance 
back.  The  madness  that  had  taken  her  had  intensified  its 
grip. 

It  was  wonderful  that  she  should  be  able  to  find  so  many 
holds  for  her  toes  along  the  sheer  front  of  the  masonr3^ 
The  ivy  crumpled,  and  now  and  then  gave  way  under  her 
hands,  the  dust  was  shaken  off  it  and  out  of  its  accompany- 
ing moss  ;  bats  flapped  their  wings  in  the  upper  air ;  the 
very  crazy  old  tower  itself  seemed  to  grow  giddy  and  ap- 
peared to  sway.  Up  and  up  went  the  mad  thing,  not 
hearing  now  the  entreaties  and  commands  issued  to  her 
from  below.  The  amazed,  the  horrified  eye-witness 
began  to  lose  his  self-control. 

"  Stop  for  God's  sake  !  "  he  shouted. 

Nothing,  however,  could  check  Delia  in  her  extraordinary 
course.  Grasping  the  tenacious  wild  growths  immedi- 
ately over  her  head,  and  tucking  her  toes  in  the  invisible 
niches  where  the  mortar  had  crumbled  from  between  the 
stones,  she  went  hand  over  hand,  up  and  up. 

So  furious  had  been  her  onslaught  on  that  sheer  surface, 
and  such  had  been  the  quickness  with  which  she  had  over- 
come it,  that  now  she  swung  a  truly  dangerous  height 
above  him,  more  than  two- thirds  of  the  way  towards  the 
platform  at  the  top.  And  it  may  have  been  that  the 
terror-stricken  tones  of  the  young  man's  entreaties  pene- 
trated to  her,  for  here  suddenly  she  paused  for  the  first 
time.  She  turned  an  instant  to  look  back.  In  that  instant 
she  was  lost. 

Swinging  in  mid-air  between  earth  and  sky,  the  impulse 
that  had  carried  her  so  far  went  from  her  as  suddenly  as  it 
came.  The  power  to  move  in  one  direction  or  the  other 
ran  out  of  her  in  that  brief  but  fatal  moment  of  her  looking 
back.  She  had  no  longer  the  self-possession  or  the  courage 
to  pursue  her  upward  course  ;  and  the  sense  she  now  had 
of  an  abyss  yawning  underneath  completely  bereft  her  of 
the  power  to  descend.  She  fluttered  impotent  as  a  leaf 
of  autumn,  some  seventy  feet  in  mid  air. 

It  needed  not  the  cry  of  her  desj)air  nor  her  face  of  snow 
246 


TWO   ON    A    TOWER 

for  the  horrified  spectator  to  comprehend  that  a  paralysis 
had  overtaken  her.  As  she  swung  and  swayed  outwards  into 
space  it  looked  that  any  moment  she  would  grow  too  faint 
to  retain  her  hold,  and  that  she  would  be  cast  dead  at  his 
feet.  The  dreadful  imminence  of  her  danger  had  the  effect 
of  restoring  his  presence  of  mind.  Porter  was  no  athlete, 
but  he  had  an  all-powerful  intelligence.  He  cried  out 
to  her  in  great  confident  tones  of  reassurance — 

"  Hold  on  a  minute,  and  I  will  come  to  you." 

That  was  the  beginning  of  a  struggle  between  life  and 
death.  The  first  fact  that  penetrated  the  consciousness 
of  the  young  man  was  that  to  climb  up  the  tower  directly 
from  the  mound  of  earth  on  which  he  stood  was  impossible. 
He  must  go  to  the  farther  end  of  the  wall,  where  the  ascent 
to  the  coping  was  comparatively  easy  to  an  active  person. 
Porter  could  not  call  himself  that,  but  under  the  goad  of 
fear  he  clambered  up  to  the  top  of  the  wall  as  quickly  as 
another.  Once  there  he  had  to  proceed  along  the  narrow 
and,  to  him,  unnerving  parapet  that  led  to  the  base  of  the 
tower.  He  could  not  trust  himself  to  walk  across  it,  there- 
fore he  went  down  on  all- fours,  and  made  his  precarious 
way  upon  his  hands  and  knees.  This  mode  was  much  the 
surer,  although  it  cut  the  palms  of  his  hands  and  pierced 
the  knees  of  his  trousers. 

The  wretched  girl  was  still  clinging  half  senseless  to  the 
side  of  the  tower  by  the  time  Porter  found  himself  beneath 
it.  She  hung  now  some  fifty  feet  above  him  ;  he  had  the 
peculiar  physical  awkwardness  that  nature  inflicts  upon 
the  thinker  ;  the  innate  phj^sical  cowardice  which  is  the 
penalty  of  the  imaginative  gift ;  his  heart  beat  cruelly ; 
his  breast  rose  and  fell  in  the  painful  effort  to  procure 
breath  ;  the  sweat  leapt  out  of  every  pore  ;  his  limbs  were 
as  paper  ;  and  yet  if  the  child  was  not  incontinently  to  be 
dashed  in  pieces  without  his  lifting  a  finger  for  her  deliver- 
ance, he  would  be  compelled  to  swing  his  leaden  bulk  into 
space,  and  ascend  the  sheer  face  of  the  tower. 

He  did  not  hesitate.  In  an  obscure  fashion  he  realized 
the  grim  significance  of  the  adage,  "  He  who  hesitates  is 
lost."  An  instant  for  reflection  ;  an  instant  for  reason  to 
approve,  for  commonsense  to  sanction,  and  his  effort  would 
not  be  made.     A  moment's  tarrying  while  he  reviewed  his 

247 


BROKE    OF    COVENDEN 

so  grievous  physical  limitations  and  the  appalling  magnitude 
of  the  task  and  the  creature  would  be  dead  upon  the  green 
ground.  He  was  content  with  a  single  idea:  If  she,  a 
child,  can  climb  up  there,  I,  Alfred  Porter,  can  climb 
there  too. 

It  came  over  the  young  man  even  in  the  moment  he 
took  his  resolve  that  his  flesh,  his  brain,  his  nerves  had 
the  consistency  of  pap  ;  but  the  indomitable  will  was 
stronger  in  him  than  the  clay.  He  forced  himself  to  rise 
from  his  bleeding  hands  and  knees,  attacked  the  crevices 
before  him  with  his  feet  and  made  a  convulsive  clutch  at 
the  moss  and  ivy  above  his  head.  He  raised  himself  up 
with  his  one  idea.  Mechanically  he  began  to  draw  his 
body  up  the  cliff-like  surface,  precisely  in  the  fashion  which 
five  minutes  before  had  been  revealed  to  him  while  the 
blood  ran  cold  in  his  veins.  He  would  have  had  no  idea 
as  to  the  manner  in  which  he  should  attempt  the  climb  had 
the  means  been  left  to  his  own  invention.  But  he  had  seen 
Delia  gripping  with  her  fingers  and  thrusting  at  the  ivy 
with  her  feet.  He  found  himself  doing  the  same,  by 
the  mechanical  force  of  imitation.  Immediately  he 
found  his  toes  running  into  nooks  capable  of  affording  foot- 
hold, and  his  hands  cleaving  to  roots  sufficientl}'  tenacious 
to  support  his  weight.  It  was  then  borne  in  upon 
him  that  he  was  ascending  into  space  with  surprising 
rapidity  and  miraculous  ease.  It  seemed  no  more  diffi- 
cult, no  more  precarious  than  ascending  a  ladder.  Like 
many  another  act  of  hardihood,  it  was  the  inception  that 
made  the  supreme  demand.  Resolution  is  the  talisman. 
It  is  the  gathering  of  the  reluctant  forces,  the  making  up  of 
the  mind  in  the  face  of  the  protest  of  reason,  the  determina- 
tion to  flout  Failure's  mocking  assurances  that  taxes  the 
Trojan  energies.  Once  launched  upon  the  grim  enterprise, 
and  the  sensibility  to  risk  is  merged  in  the  overmastering 
physical  effort,  in  the  sudden  splendid  lust  to  achieve. 

Porter's  first  steps  had  been  involuntary.  But  finding 
himself  borne  onwards  and  upwards  so  lightl}',  so  easily, 
a  rare  sense  of  exhilaration  was  kindled  in  him.  The 
sporting  instinct  asserted  itself  in  his  pulses  for  the  first 
time  in  his  life.  And  with  it  came  that  intrepid  insouciance 
which  is  the  hallmark  and  the  birthright  of  the  born  sports- 

248 


TWO    ON    A    TOWER 

man,  which  he  exhibits  in  the  crises  of  the  games  he  happens 
to  be  plaj'ing  :  the  leader  of  cavalry  recovering  the  guns  ; 
the  foxhunter  taking  his  own  line  across  a  blind  country ; 
the  three-quarter  getting  over  on  the  stroke  of  the 
clock.  His  limbs  performed  their  motions  instinctively ; 
his  whole  being  was  surrendered  to  an  idea.  A  pair  of 
unstable  feet  faltered  in  a  niche  high  above  his  head.  If 
he  burst  his  heart  he  would  not  be  able  to  breathe  again 
until  he  felt  them  in  his  hands. 

Moving  upwards  through  space  he  was  conscious  of 
nothing  but  that.  Danger  and  insecurity  did  not  exist. 
Flesh  and  blood,  sunlight  and  green  fields  did  not  exist. 
Time  there  was  not,  nor  place.  At  last  he  was  up  to  her  ; 
he  was  touching  the  hem  of  her  skirt.  Releasing  one  hand 
from  the  ivy,  he  encircled  her  tightly  with  his  unencum- 
bered arm.  He  became  superhuman  as  he  did  so.  At 
that  instant  he  was  suddenly  endowed  with  the  strength  of 
Samson  and  the  heroes  of  fable.  Hoarsely  he  told  her  to 
fold  her  arms  round  his  throat.  She  obeyed  with  two 
little  throbbing  wrists,  as  cold  as  stone. 

How  they  got  down  alive  neither  of  them  could  ever 
say.  Afterwards  they  could  only  point  to  the  fact  that 
they  lived  to  tell  the  tale.  The  descent  was  a  marvellous 
business,  but  that  was  a  moment  when  our  young  man 
wielded  marvellous  qualities.  He  carried  the  talisman  in 
his  spirit  that  performs  the  miracles  of  which  we  read. 
Your  one  idea  men  ;  your  men  who  have  the  capacity  to 
resolve  their  souls  in  their  desires  seldom  fail.  Porter  was 
surrendered  wholly  to  the  gods  of  his  enormous  resolution, 
and  step  by  step  they  brought  him  and  the  shivering  cower- 
ing burden  that  he  carried  in  complete  safety  to  the 
coping  of  the  wall. 

"  I  am  all  right  now,  I  can  walk  now,"  said  Deha  faintly, 
the  moment  her  feet  touched  solid  bricks  and  mortar. 

"  You  are  sure  ?  "  he  said,  allowing  her  to  slide  off  his 
shoulders  on  to  it. 

Finding  herself  on  familiar  territory,  she  made  an  effort 
to  regain  her  self-possession  and  was  able  to  do  so.  Almost 
directly  the  clear  tone  of  her  voice  advised  her  deliverer  of 
the  fact,  and  he  allowed  her  to  make  her  own  practised  way 
along  the  parapet  to  the  far  end  of  the  wall  where  the 

249 


BROKE    OF    COVENDEN 

descent  to  mother  earth  was  easiest.  He  laboured  after  her 
in  the  decidedly  less  dignified  and  less  comfortable  fashion 
in  which  he  had  crossed  it  before. 

When  the  green  earth  at  last  received  them  again, 
Porter's  first  act  was  to  prostrate  himself  at  full  length  and 
bury  his  face  in  the  grass.  For  about  a  minute  he  lay  mute 
and  panting  like  a  dog,  and  then  began  to  sob  hysterically. 
Directly  afterwards  the  agitated  creature  bending  over 
him  was  terrified  to  find  that  he  was  become  insensible. 
She  pulled  him  by  the  shoulder  but  he  gave  no  sign.  She 
called  his  name,  but  he  made  no  answer.  She  knelt  down 
at  his  side,  and  tried  to  raise  him  up,  but  putting  forth  all 
her  little  strength  she  found  he  did  not  yield.  Great  was 
her  alarm,  but  she  managed  to  retain  her  presence  of  mind. 
She  remembered  that  a  clear  stream  of  water  babbled 
over  stones  at  the  bottom  of  the  hill.  Running  down 
to  it  as  fast  as  she  could,  she  took  off  her  straw  hat,  and 
filled  the  crown  of  it  with  water.  To  return  with  this 
specific  up  the  steep  incline  was  not  easy,  but  so  quick  and 
delicate  was  she  of  foot,  that,  without  spilling  a  drop  of  it, 
she  was  back  at  the  side  of  her  friend  in  quite  a  short 
time. 

To  her  immense  relief  she  discovered  him  to  be  sitting  up 
with  his  head  resting  against  the  ruin.     He  was  very  pale. 

"  Water,"  he  gasped  at  the  sight  of  her  bearing  it 
gravely  in  front  of  her. 

She  gave  the  hat  to  him  with  a  still  greater  gravity.  He 
drank  greedily. 

"Ha  !  "  he  said,  drawing  a  deep  breath,  "how  good!" 

"  Can  you  ever  forgive  me  ?  "  said  Delia,  very  white  and 
frightened. 

He  looked  unflinchingly  upon  her  distress. 

"  I  don't  know  that  you  deserve  to  be  forgiven,"  he  said^ 
with  a  deliberation  that  made  her  wince. 

"  You  will  forgive  me,"  she  said,  very  near  to  tears. 

"  It  was  incredibly  foolish.  Tell  me  what  devil  it  was 
that  possessed  you." 

She  burst  into  tears. 

"  You  might  have  been  killed,"  she  said. 

"  And  you  ?  " 

"  I  wish  I  had  been,"  she  said  bitterly. 
250 


TWO    ON    A   TOWER 

Her  distress  was  rather  painful  in  its  realness,  but  he 
kept  his  pity  under  control. 

"  You  must  tell  me  what  made  you  do  it." 

Delia's  face  burnt  with  shame. 

"  I  am  waiting,"  he  said. 

Finding  him  as  implacable  as  ever,  and  herself  as  com- 
pletely under  his  dominion  here  as  in  all  things  since  she  had 
known  him,  she  prepared  to  submit.  She  would  have  bitten 
off  her  tongue  rather  than  make  the  confession  he  was 
forcing  out  of  her.  But  there  was  no  help  for  it.  As  he 
sat  there  with  his  deadly  pale  fare,  the  knees  of  his  trousers 
cut,  and  blood  visible  on  the  palms  of  his  hands,  he  was  as 
inexorable  as  the  piece  of  stone  against  which  he  leant. 
Trembling  violently,  she  stifled  her  tears,  and  gathered 
every  crumb  of  her  resolution.  After  all,  like  her  sisters', 
hers  was  a  sufficiently  Spartan  character. 

"  I  knew  myself  to  be  despicable,"  she  said,  not  flinching 
from  her  punishment  now  she  was  called  on  to  undergo  it, 
nor  sparing  herself  a  single  stroke  of  humiliation,  "  in 
almost  all  things  compared  with  you.  But  when  you  were 
so  much  out  of  breath  coming  up  the  hill,  it  made  me  glad 
to  think  there  was  just  one  thing,  however  silly  and  small 
it  was,  in  which  I  should  not  have  to  acknowledge  myself 
beaten.  I  thought  it  would  be  delightful  to  let  you  see 
I  was  not  altogether  good  for  nothing,  and  that  there  were 
some  things  I  could  do.     This  is  the  consequence." 

But  his  compassion  was  still  withheld.  His  attitude 
was  not  what  she  had  been  led  to  look  for  in  one  so  kind. 

"  I  deserve  my  fate,"  she  said  humbly.  "  I  deserve 
it  all." 

"  It  may  be  salutary." 

"  I  shall  never  be  vainglorious  again,"  said  the  child. 

"  Suppose  we  try  to  forget  ?  " 

"  You  will  forgive  me." 

"  There  is  nothing  to  forgive,  as  far  as  I  am  concerned 
personally,  although  you  did  juggle  with  two  lives  I  esteem. 
The  real  offence  was  committed  against  yourself." 

"  But  you  are  angry  with  me." 

"  No.  It  may  hurt  me  a  little  to  find  you  acting  un- 
worthily. I  have  not  passed  it  over  Hghtly,  even  at  the 
risk  of  being  a  prig  who  ought  to  be  kicked,  because  you 

251 


BROKE    OF   COVENDEN 

have  a  character  that  is  worth  taking  a  few  risks  over. 
Had  you  been  of  another  sex,  I  am  not  sure  that  it  would 
not  have  been  my  painful  duty  to  emphasize  what  I  mean 
in  the  robust  English  fashion." 

By  now  amusement  had  softened  his  eyes. 

DeUa  struggled  against  a  renewal  of  her  tears. 

"  How  stupid  and  foolish  I  must  seem ! "  she  said 
bitterly.  "  How  weak  you  must  think  me  !  I  do  try  so 
hard  not  to  be,  and  yet  the  more  I  try  the  more  hopeless  do 
I  become.  You  seem  so  strong  and  sure.  -  Everything 
you  do  seems  to  be  wise  and  right,  while  I  do  nothing  but 
expose  my  folly.  I  wish  you  had  not  come  up  to  me  at 
all.     I  wish  you  had  let  me  stay  there  and  kill  myself !  " 

Delia  stamped  her  foot,  and  again  the  tears  appeared. 
She  was  a  woman  who  saw  herself  degraded  in  the  eyes  of 
one  whose  poor  opinion  was  unendurable. 

"  I  suppose  when  the  truth  comes  out,"  she  went  on, 
"  you  can  ride  better  than  I,  although  you  told  me  you 
had  never  mounted  a  horse  in  your  life." 

"  Or  stand  on  my  head  better,  or  play  cricket  better," 
said  he,  laughing. 

"No,  I  don't  mean  it  Uke  that,"  said  poor  Delia.  "It 
is  because  everything  you  do  inflicts  me  so  much  with 
my  own  weakness.  You  know  I  began  by  hating 
you  ;  and  I  am  afraid  I  shall  end  by  hating  you.  It  does 
make  me  so  miserable." 

"  We  must  learn  not  to  underrate  ourselves,"  said  her 
friend  with  great  simplicity.  He  could  see  now  how  over- 
come she  was  by  what  had  happened,  and  felt  the  necessity 
of  being  more  gentle.  "We  creatures  of  moods  suffer  in- 
tensely ;  none  but  ourselves  know  what  we  suffer  ;  but 
we  must  learn  to  be  strong,  we  must  learn  not  to  yield. 
In  time  we  may  think  of  ourselves  much  less  meanly." 

"  But  others  will  not." 

"  If  we  strive  ever  to  be  brave  we  shall  cease  to  care  what 
others  think  of  us.  The  opinion  of  others  about  ourselves 
ought  not  to  count.  Our  own  minds  are  the  highest  tri- 
bunals before  which  we  can  be  brought.  Those  are  the 
only  courts  that  can  weigh  the  mass  of  evidence." 

"It  is  easy  for  you  to  disregard  the  opinion  of  others, 
you  who  are  so  powerful,  so  self-reliant,  but  you  do  not 

25^ 


TWO    ON    A    TOWER 

know  how  difficult  it  is  for  me.  I  have  no  confidence  in 
myself  at  all.  I — I  am  not  like  you  and  my  sister  Joan. 
You  have  strong  characters  that  never  falter,  and  go  right 
always.  I — I  don't  know  which  way  to  turn  or  what  to 
do!" 

Sobs  broke  out  of  the  distressed  little  creature,  and  in 
her  despair  she  covered  her  eyes.  No  words  from  her 
friend,  however  wise,  however  solicitous,  were  able  to 
soften  the  sense  of  inferiority  by  which  she  was  over- 
powered. Why  she  should  be  suffering  so  acutely  at  that 
moment  he  did  not  know.  Far  was  he  from  suspecting 
that  his  own  too-potent  personality  was  the  cause.  The 
knowledge  that  she  was  humiliated  in  his  eyes  had  over- 
borne her.  She  felt  it  would  not  be  possible  to  hold  up 
her  head  any  more.  She  was  disgraced  forever  in  the  eyes 
of  him  whose  fair  opinion  she  valued  above  that  of  all  the 
world. 

Recognizing  at  last  how  hopeless  was  the  task  of  healing 
her  wounded  self-esteem,  her  companion  rose  from  his  tus- 
sock of  earth,  and  suggested  that  they  should  retrace  their 
steps  to  the  house.  Little  passed  between  them  as  they 
went.  It  was  too  plain  that  Delia  had  surrendered  herself 
to  the  luxury  of  being  miserable.  Mis-reading  the  main 
cause  of  her  unhappiness,  he  was  inclined  to  believe  that 
her  present  mood  would  be  medicinal.  The  cast  of  his 
mind  was  naturally  not  lenient.  He  could  not  help  feeling 
that  her  recent  conduct  merited  severe  retribution.  She 
was  engaged  now  in  meting  it  out  to  herself,  and  he  could 
hardly  bring  himself  to  deplore  that  she  suffered  under  it  so 
intensely. 

Her  distress  gave  him  an  even  finer  sense  of  her  delicacy 
than  he  had  had  before.  Such  a  fragility  could  easily 
bruise.  Evidently  women  were  fearfully  and  wonderfully 
made,  although  to  be  sure  this  frail  little  thing  could  hardly 
be  called  a  woman  yet.  He  found  himself  speculating 
on  her  fate  as  he  walked  beside  her.  The  spectre  of  the 
average  man  rose  again  before  his  eyes.  Too  palpably 
was  she  the  pre-destined  victim  of  some  rough  and  ready, 
eminently  well-meaning  savage.  He  pitied  her  profoundly. 
Poor  little  devil,  some  honest  rogue  would  see  to  it  that  she 
bled ! 

253 


BROKE    OF    COVENDEN 

He  left  her  in  the  drive.  She  stood  wistfully  to  watch 
his  insignificant  figure  recede  out  of  sight  among  the  trees. 
She  then  turned  her  steps  towards  a  thicket  which  lay 
beyond  a  lawn  behind  the  house.  Penetrating  to  the 
heart  of  it,  she  flung  herself  upon  her  face  beneath  a  great 
tree,  and  wept  the  bitterest  tears  she  had  ever  shed. 


254 


CHAPTER    XX 
Preparations  for  Comedy 

ALL  this  time  our  leading  comic  female  personage 
was  gathering  her  forces  for  what  lay  before  her. 
She  rejoiced,  as  you  know,  in  the  dual  endowment  of  courage 
and  wisdom.  The  nature  of  the  calamity  that  had  fallen 
upon  her  was  a  tax  upon  them  both.  It  is  a  pity  that  the 
conjunction  of  these  qualities  is  not  a  purer  source  of 
gratification.  The  presence  of  the  one  too  often  implies  the 
necessity  for  the  other.  Wisdom  involves  a  full  measure 
of  clear  sight ;  a  capacity  to  look  around  and  ahead. 
Courage,  on  the  other  hand,  is  required  to  support  such  a 
bold  proceeding.  Under  the  glare  of  the  cold  light  of 
reason,  or  the  spell  of  a  sage  anticipation,  it  does  not  get 
a  fair  chance.  A  martyr  would  hardly  consent  to  walk 
to  the  stake  if  he  were  not  convinced  of  the  immortality  of 
the  soul. 

Mrs.  Broke  recognized  acutely  the  fatal  nature  of  her 
son's  act.  She  believed  that  as  a  family  they  lived  in  a 
moment  when  every  ounce  of  social  prestige  they  could 
scrape  together  must  be  utilized  to  keep  their  heads  above 
the  stream.  They  had  enemies.  There  would  be  no  lack 
of  volunteers  for  the  agreeable  duty  of  performing  the  happy 
dispatch.  There  were  persons  only  too  anxious,  too 
willing,  to  undertake  the  humane  office  of  inserting  a 
piece  of  lead  in  their  shoes,  so  that  once  in  the  water  they 
might  "  go  down  to  Davy  Jones  "  in  the  most  effectual 
manner.  You  cannot  be  powerful  and  exclusive,  and  have 
a  reputation  for  arrogance  without  being  encumbered  with 
friends  of  this  kind.  Wherever  there  is  a  dying  lion  the 
jackals  gather. 

255 


BROKE    OF    COVENDEN 

However,  in  the  stoicism  of  her  spirit  she  did  not  flinch 
from  the  coup  de  grace  of  the  outside  world  so  much  as 
another  might  have  done.  She  valued  power  not  so  much 
as  a  mere  possession,  but  rather  for  what  it  could  do. 
The  grave  difficulties,  when  all  was  said,  rose  in  her  domestic 
circle.  Turning  the  matter  over  in  her  mind  during  the 
watches  of  the  night,  she  had  to  make  the  confession  that, 
allowing  for  all  the  inestimable  advantages  her  courage 
and  wisdom  conferred  upon  her,  there  was  one  point  in 
which  she  went  in  terror  of  that  simple  hearty  mediaevalist, 
her  husband. 

She  had  made  a  comprehensive  and  exhaustive  study  of 
that  immaculate  gentleman.  In  any  given  situation  she 
was  tolerably  sure  of  how  he  would  act.  She  had  made  an 
inventory  of  his  character  and  ideas.  But  there  were  just 
two  clauses  in  it  that  foreshadowed  the  gravity  of  the  issue  at 
present  besetting  him.  Sense  of  humour,  nil ;  Pride,  the 
algebraic  figure,  x.  This  eternal  unknown  quantity  baffled 
her.  That  apart  he  stood  forth  a  lusty  beef-eating,  beer- 
drinking  British  farmer ;  a  consummately  amenable  animal, 
provided  you  did  not  keep  him  waiting  for  his  meals.  Up 
to  that  point  he  was  as  simple,  as  honest  as  a  horse  ;  up 
to  that  point  his  emotional  system  had  been  tabulated 
with  a  highly  sagacious  nicety.  But  this  pride  of  his,  this 
survival  of  other  ages  in  him,  was  different.  Its  depths  had 
not  been  plumbed.  They  were  a  little  terrible,  a  little 
legendary.  And  they  derived  an  additional  reputation  for 
profundity  owing  to  their  limpidity  of  surface. 

Sleeping  and  awake,  the  problem  gave  her  no  peace. 
The  longer  she  put  off  the  evil  hour,  the  more  difficult  it 
grew.  It  was  imperative  that  all  should  be  confessed 
without  delay,  lest  he  find  out  by  other  means.  It  was 
unlike  her  to  shirk  an  ordeal,  but  in  this  matter  again 
and  again  was  she  confronted  by  her  vacillation.  She 
would  go  to  bed  with  the  determination  hot  upon  her 
to  tell  him  the  first  thing  in  the  morning.  She  would  rise 
with  the  resolution  to  tell  him  immediately  after  luncheon. 
She  would  dress  for  dinner,  and  vow  to  tell  him  the  last 
thing  before  retiring.  She  began  to  grow  a  little 
despicable  in  her  own  eyes.  Such  weakness  was  no  part  of 
her  character. 


PREPARATIONS    FOR    COMEDY 

Miss  Wayling  also  was  a  person  whom  it  was  vital  tc 
consider.  Common  equity  forbade  delay.  In  this  case 
the  task  did  not  daunt  her,  although  she  was  keenly 
desiroiis  to  spare  her  all  avoidable  pain.  To  this  end  she 
waited  unHl  Billy's  wife  and  her  aunt,  Miss  Sparrow,  had 
been  installed  quietly  in  the  small  cottage  on  the  hill.  She 
made  no  secret  of  their  coming.  She  took  an  early  oppor- 
tunity of  saying — 

"  Two  very  dear  people  in  whom  I  am  interested  are 
coming  to  live  in  the  old  empty  cottage  on  the  hill.  You 
have  had  no  one  for  it,  Edmund,  since  old  Duffin  the 
gardener  died.  It  might  as  well  be  occupied  as  he  idle 
and  rot." 

On  a  gracious  morning  of  spring  when  the  rapturously 
happy  women  from  the  purlieus  of  Hampden  Road  had 
been  housed  in  their  new  abode,  Mrs.  Broke  made  a  journey 
up  the  hill  to  see  them.  She  had  Miss  Wayling  to  accom- 
pany her.  The  discreet  woman  felt  that  if  the  girl  was 
allowed  the  opportunity  of  viewing  aunt  and  niece  with 
perfectly  disinterested  eyes,  the  impression  she  was  likely 
to  bear  away  would  stand  her  in  good  stead  when  she 
received  the  blow  that  unwittingly  they  were  condemned 
to  deal  her. 

Upon  their  return,  consciously  refreshed  in  spirit  by  a 
walk  bathed  in  sweet  airs  and  the  scent  of  the  young  spring 
flowers,  they  talked  without  reserve.  It  was  not  the  least 
of  Mrs.  Broke's  gifts  that  no  one  could  long  inhabit  the 
zone  of  her  energetic  gaze  without  revealing  much  that 
a  less  strenuous  intelligence  would  have  been  content  to 
overlook.  She  had  become  one  of  the  few,  the  singularly 
few,  who  could  be  said  to  have  an  insight  into  the  nature 
of  Miss  Wayling.  To  the  adulating  mob  which  formed  her 
world  she  passed  as  cold,  proud,  formal,  and  exclusive, 
a  person  with  whom  it  was  neither  a  light  task  nor  a 
pleasant  to  have  to  do.  Mrs.  Broke  went  deeper.  Her 
habit  of  minute  observation  had  enabled  her  to  form  a 
humaner  estimate.  In  her  dealings  with  the  world  she 
might  not  be  particularly  scrupulous,  but  she  loved  her  son 
too  tenderly  to  sacrifice  wantonly  his  happiness  for  a  mess 
of  pottage.  She  now  felt  that  having  taken  the  precaution 
to  mitigate  the  blow  as  far  as  lay  in  her  power,  she  could 

257    "  -  R 


BROKE    OF    COVENDEN 

deal  it  with  a  moderately  definite  knowledge  of  the  manner 
in  which  it  would  be  accepted. 

"  What  did  you  think  of  my  pensioners,  my  dear  Maud  ?  " 
she  said,  in  the  privacy  of  her  own  room.  "  Are  they 
not  charming  ?  Are  they  not  wholly  delightiul,  single- 
minded,  and  fresh  ?  " 

"  They  are,  indeed,"  said  Miss  Wayling,  with  a  little  more 
animation  in  her  eyes  than  was  usual.  "  Oh,  if  one  could 
only  be  like  them  !  It  nearly  overcame  me  to  see  them  so 
happy.  I  think  Alice  is  the  fairest,  sweetest  creature  I 
have  ever  seen." 

"  And  the  old  aunt  ?  " 

"  The  old  aunt  is  a  dear.  That  sweet,  old-fashioned 
curtsey !  And  the  way  her  voice  shook  when  she  so 
timidly  gave  you  the  handful  of  flowers  she  had  picked 
out  of  the  garden.  I  would  like  to  steal  half  of  them  if  I 
may.  And  that  beautiful  haunted  old  face  that  seems 
almost  frightened  to  find  itself  so  happy." 

"  They  are  very  moving  and  beautiful.  There  is  hardly 
a  name  for  such  a  surpassing  simplicity.  I  should  say  it  is 
even  more  difficult  for  people  like  ourselves  to  achieve  such 
a  simplicity  as  that  than  it  is  for  the  rich  man  to  achieve 
the  kingdom  of  heaven." 

"  Not  forgetting  the  rich  woman,"  said  Miss  Wayling, 
with  a  wan  laugh. 

"  True,  my  poor  child  !  " 

"  But  these  dear  people  do  seem  to  have  achieved  it." 

"  Yes  ;  I  think  they  have  after  long  intolerable  years  of 
misery.  But  I  took  you  to  see  them  because  there  is  a 
story,  a  rather  remarkable  story,  I  want  to  tell  you.  It 
involves  us  both  ;  but  however  and  in  what  manner  we 
may  be  disposed  to  resent  the  outrage  of  our  own  personal 
feelings,  I  can  only  pray  that  we  spare  one  another.  What 
you  will  suffer,  I  shall  suffer  too.  We  shall  be  a  pair  of 
lacerated  women.  I  only  pray  that  in  our  torment  we  do 
not  turn  and  rend  each  other." 

The  dramatic  change  in  the  voice  of  the  elder  woman 
startled  the  girl.  Every  word  was  charged  with  meaning. 
Yet  she  could  not  conceive  how  the  two  poor  women  at  the 
cottage  could  have  a  tragic  bearing  on  her  life.  Mrs.  Broke 
did  not  allow  her  perplexity  to  remain  unresolved.     Briefly 

258 


PREPARATIONS    FOR    COMEDY 

she  outlined  the  lamentable  history.  She  took  the  girl's 
shrinking  hands  in  her  own. 

"  I  do  not  ask  you  to  forgive  him,"  she  said,  "  but  in  the 
name  of  that  wretched  innocent  whom  we  have  seen  this 
morning,  I  ask  you  to  pardon  him." 

"  There  is  nothing  for  me  to  forgive  ;  there  is  nothing 
for  me  to  pardon,"  said  Miss  Wayling,  in  a  voice  that  was 
devoid  of  a  trace  of  passion.  "  From  the  first  he  did  not 
care  for  me.  I  was  conscious  of  that.  And  if  he  ever 
showed  me  any  favour — and  I  cannot  recall  that  he  ever 
did — it  was  never  more  than  a  formal  and  tardy  concession 
to  circumstances.     I  had  come  to  see  all  that  lately." 

"  Ah,  but  you,  my  dear,  poor,  brave  child  !  " 

Mrs.  Broke  held  the  cold  shrinking  fingers  firmer.  With 
a  sudden  effort  the  girl  drew  them  away,  and  turned  them 
desolately  against  her  heart.  Her  white  face  had  become 
pinched  ;    her  cheeks  had  fallen  in. 

"  I  wanted  but  this,"  she  said,  in  a  voice  that  had  grown 
metallic  in  its  hardness.  "  I,  the  despised,  the  rejected  of 
women,  have  my  mockery  complete  !  I  knew  from  the 
first  I  could  not  hold  him  ;  I  knew  I  could  not  draw  him 
to  me  ;  I  felt  myself  to  be  repelling  him,  as  I  repel  all  the 
people  that  I  care  for.  Never  was  a  fate  more  bitter  and 
perverse.  Either  I  am  fawned  upon  by  a  host  of  parasites, 
or  I  am  shunned  because  of  the  distaste  I  breed  in  those 
whom  I  long  to  call  my  friends.  I  knew  I  should  lose 
him  !  The  last  time  I  saw  him  there  was  something  here 
in  my  heart  that  told  me  he  could  never  be  mine." 

In  the  first  overwhelming  anguish  of  the  girl's  position 
Mrs.  Broke  made  no  attempt  to  console.  She  had  judged 
shrewdly  as  to  the  manner  in  which  it  would  be  received. 
The  pangs  of  wounded  self-love  were  stinging  her  beyond 
endurance.  There  are  no  half-courses  with  such  natures. 
Perhaps  it  is  only  once  or  twice  in  a  lifetime  that  their  pride 
will  allow  them  to  utter  a  complaint.  And  when  bleeding 
and  excoriated  past  all  suffering  it  does,  no  voice  crying 
in  the  wilderness  can  sound  more  wailfully  to  human  ears ! 
Mrs.  Broke,  hearing  it,  was  harrowed  by  it.  She  under- 
stood its  meaning.  There  were  fibres  in  that  sensitive 
organism  being  wrenched  out  by  the  roots. 

"  The  last  time  we  met,"  she  went  on,  "  I  could  see  he 

259 


BROKE    OF    COVENDEN 

meant  to  get  free.  And  if  I  had  not  been  so  selfish  I  should 
have  made  it  easier  for  him.  If  I  had  not  been  so  absorbed 
in  myself  he  would  have  been  helped  to  a  release.  But 
I  could  not  do  it ;  I  am  not  of  the  clay  that  is  capable  of 
self-sacrifice.  The  effect  I  have  had  on  his  sisters  has  only 
been  the  reflection  of  that  I  have  had  on  him.  From  the 
first  they  have  shunned  me  and  distrusted  me,  as  all  really 
nice  people  do.  There  are  so  many  people  who  are  not 
nice  at  all  who  court  me  because  of  my  unfortunate  posi- 
tion, that  it  makes  indifference  from  people  I  would  like 
to  be  my  friends  so  much  harder  to  bear.  Perhaps  it  is 
because  I  am  so  weary  of  everything,  so  weary  of  my  gilded 
cage,  that  I  am  thrown  back  upon  the  contemplation  of 
myself.  I  know  I  devote  too  much  thought  to  myself. 
I  am  doing  so  now,  I  know  I  am,  when,  dear  Mrs.  Broke,  I 
ought  to  be  thinking  of  you.  After  all,  it  falls  so  very  much 
harder  on  you.  How  do  you  bear  it !  I  do  feel  for  you, 
dear  Mrs.  Broke.     How  good  and  brave  you  are  !  " 

The  elder  woman  received  her  in  her  arms,  and  kissed 
her  like  a  mother. 

"  1  at  least  understand  you,  my  poor,  poor  child,"  she 
said.  "  And  if  you  were  stung  to  make  these  confidences 
oftener  you  would  be  more  happy.  It  does  not  pay  for 
us  women  to  be  too  reserved.  It  is  not  always  wise  to 
wait  until  a  supreme  moment  compels  us  to  expose  the 
thoughts  that  have  gathered  in  our  hearts.  They  may 
congeal  so  easily  if  we  do  not  relieve  them  now  and  then. 
It  is  noble  of  you  to  accept  this  blow  so  stedfastly  ;  I  am 
sure  it  makes  my  task  so  much  less  full  of  pain." 

They  remained  a  long  time  together,  offering  to  each 
other  a  consolation  that  helped  them  to  forget  their  private 
torment.  It  is  said  their  sex  can  be  supremely  tender 
when  their  suffering  is  on  a  common  ground  ;  when  eye 
to  eye  they  look  upon  the  gashes  the  same  beloved  object 
has  dealt  with  his  impartial  steel.  In  such  cases,  they 
have  nothing  to  fear  from  one  another  when  they  show 
their  wounds. 

From  that  hour  Mrs.  Broke  nerved  herself  anew  for  the 
greater  task.  It  grew  each  day  ;  each  day  increased  the 
guilt  of  her  connivance. 

"  It  is  imperative  that  I  should  tell  Mr.  Broke,"  she  con- 
260 


PREPARATIONS    FOR    COMEDY 

fessed  to  Maud  Wayling ;  "  but  you  do  not  know  how 
fearful  I  am,  how  afraid  !  " 

'*  Surely,  dear  Mrs.  Broke,  delay  is  dangerous.  To- 
morrow the  task  will  be  still  harder ;  and  if  he  made  the 
discovery  himself  he  might  not  find  it  so  easy  to  forgive," 

"  If  he  made  the  discovery  himself  he  would  not  forgive. 
I  know  him  only  too  well.  And  as  it  is,  I  fear  he  will  never 
forgive  our  poor  boy.  There  are  points  on  which  I  have 
known  men  to  be  implacable." 

The  unhappy  women  were  seen  to  shiver  before  one 
another's  eyes. 


261 


CHAPTER  XXI 

In  which  our  First  Comedian  makes  his  Bow 
before  an  appreciative  Audience 

IN  the  course  of  that  afternoon  Mrs.  Broke  took  the 
plunge  under  the  spur  of  necessity.  She  could  no 
longer  afford  to  run  the  risk  of  the  secret  leaking  out.  She 
was  too  familiar  with  her  husband's  Draconian  cast  to 
continue  to  incur  so  great  v?  danger.  She  must  away  with 
all  cowardice,  lest  she  should  be  implicated  in  her  son's  act 

Broke,  as  usual,  entered  the  library  wearily,  under 
protest,  to  engage  as  he  believed  in  a  futile  discussion  of 
their  financial  state. 

"  Money,  money,  money  !  "  he  said,  sinking,  as  was 
his  wont  during  these  periods  of  boredom,  into  his  customary 
chair  at  the  side  of  the  lire. 

"  Something  new,"  said  Mrs.  Broke,  "  and  something 
worse." 

Her  brevity  was  electrical.  Broke  sat  up  suddenly, 
galvanised  by  her  tone. 

"  I — ah,  can  hardly  conceive  anything  worse  than  our 
need  of  money,  our  attempts  to  make  bricks  without 
straw." 

"  Try,"  said  the  laconic  woman. 

"  That  fellow  has  not  been  playing  tricks  ?  " 

"  Your  guess  is  excellent." 

"  They  have  not — ah,  fallen  out  ?  " 

"  No  ;  but  Billy  has  married  another." 

Broke's  shout  rang  through  the  room  like  the  firing  of 
a  shot. 

262 


OUR    FIRST   COMEDIAN 

Her  brevity  was  calculated.  She  had  carefully  thought 
out  beforehand  the  most  fitting  manner  in  which  to  tell 
him.  Expedience  was  hardly  ever  divorced  from  that 
inexorably  sagacious  mind,  even  in  moments  of  severe 
affliction.  She  had  come  to  see  that  in  this  case,  all 
attempts  at  breaking  the  news,  all  verbiage,  all  the  sugar 
to  coat  the  bitter  pill,  would  not  only  fail  of  its  effect, 
but  would  have  a  tendency  to  aggravate.  Your  bluntly- 
honest  characters  demand  a  perpetual  exhibition  of  that 
quality  in   others.      Flummery  is  not  for  them. 

To  Broke's  shout  of  amazement  his  wife  responded  with 
the  perfectly  calm  lustre  of  her  eyes. 

"  D — do  you  know  what  you  are  saying,  woman  ?  " 

"  Edmund,"  she  said,  "  you  may  find  it  the  least  bit 
premature  to  trumpet  your  astonishment  in  this  tre- 
mendous key.  It  may  result  in  anti-climax.  Because 
you  have  yet  to  hear  the  worst.  Billy  is  not  only  married, 
but  he  is  married  to  a  person  who  has  not  a  penny  ;  a 
person  he  was  good  enough  to  take  out  of  Perkin  and 
Warbeck's  shop  in  Bond  Street.  He  took  her  from  the 
counter." 

Our  hero  rose  out  of  his  chair.  He  proceeded  to  stagger 
up  and  down  the  large  room  with  both  hands  pressed  tightly 
against  the  sides  of  his  head.  He  was  as  one  suffering 
the  pangs  of  a  splitting  neuralgia  or  an  excruciating 
toothache. 

"  Impossible,  impossible  !  "  he  said  at  intervals. 

His  wife  did  not  utter  a  syllable  until  this  paroxysm 
was  over.  It  is  useless  to  ask  a  man  to  be  calm  the  moment 
a  nerve  has  been  torn  out  by  the  roots.  She  stood  per- 
fectly still,  and  waited  for  the  first  dire  pinches  of  his 
agony  to  pass.  She  stood  with  ^he  inscrutable,  the 
impartial  countenance  with  which  Juno  may  look  on  at 
the  frenzies  of  Jupiter. 

"  Can  you  bear  the  details,  Edmund  ?  "  she  said  at  last. 

"  I  don't  know,"  he  said  in  an  impotent  voice. 

In  a  few  succinct  phrases,  unsoftened  to  that  wounded 
understanding,  untuned  to  those  devastated  ears,  she  gave 
the  salient  facts,  in  so  far  as  she  was  acquainted  with 
them.     She  concluded  her  recital  in  these  words — 

"  Edmund,  here  is  the  outline  of  the  affair  as  it  exists, 
263 


BROKE    OF   COVENDEN 

We  are  ruined  and  mocked ;  do  not  let  us  conceal  those 
facts  from  ourselves  ;  but,  acting  on  a  true  conception  of 
our  position,  I  would  ask  you  to  display  wisdom  as  well 
as  fortitude.  You  will,  Edmund.  I  am  sure,  do  the  right 
thing." 

He  stopped  a  moment  in  his  peregrination  of  the  room, 
but  his  reply  was  inarticulate. 

"  I  ask  you,  Edmund,  to  give  me  your  shoulder.  I 
suffer  as  intensely  as  you.  We  cannot  piece  together 
that  which  is  broken  ;  we  cannot  undo  that  which  is  done  ; 
but  mitigate  the  consequences  of  this  disaster  we  can  and 
must.  I  have  already  taken  them  into  my  consideration, 
and  stand  persuaded  that  we  shall  serve  our  interests 
privately  and  as  a  family  by  being  just.  Suffer  as  we  may, 
we  must  not  fail  in  our  first  dut}'.  We  must  give  this 
wretched  tool  of  Providence  the  sanction  of  our  recog- 
nition." 

She  breathed  heavily  as  she  spoke  these  words.  They 
were  not  easy  to  utter.  Stoical  she  might  be,  but  they 
galled  her  cruelly.     Broke  lifted  his  chin  in  perplexity. 

"  I  can't  understand,"  he  said  dully. 

Our  sagacious  ladv,  in  the  midst  of  the  anguish  that  was 
shaking  her,  showed  him  a  half-humorous  gleam  of  teeth. 

"  I  appreciate  your  difficulty.  But  I  see  the  duty 
which  lies  before  you,  and  I  cannot  too  earnestly  entreat 
yon  to  perform  it.  You  may  agree  with  me,  Edmund,  or 
y^ou  may  not,  but  I  am  persuaded  that  in  all  circum- 
stances our  duty,  however  irksome,  indicates  the  path 
along  which  is  to  be  found  our  highest  personal  welfare. 
However  you  may  be  moved  to  visit  your  resentment 
upon  Billy— and  as  his  mother  and  with  my  heart  bleeding 
I  am  the  first  to  admit  that  he  has  incurred  it — I  ask  you 
to  use  perfect  equity  in  your  dealings  with  his  wife.  I 
am  looking  ahead." 

"  You  are  talking,  woman,  as  though  you  were  in- 
sane !  " 

In  her  husband's  present  state  of  mental  anarchy  she 
saw  it  would  be  futile  to  proceed.  She  fell  back  upon 
silence,  therefore.  But  she  continued  to  regard  him  with 
a  self-possession  that  had  a  considerable  degree  of  pity  in 
it.     He  was  still  walking  up  and  down  in  his  rather  sorry 

264 


OUR    FIRST    COMEDIAN 

manner.  He  was  bewildered.  He  kept  clutching  at  his 
head,  as  if  he  desired  to  pluck  out  with  his  two  hands 
the  jagged  thoughts  that  were  ploughing  it  in  furrows. 
In  their  present  shape  he  could  not  endure  them.  It  was 
as  though  he  wished  to  lift  them  bodily  from  that  setting 
which  had  overthrown  his  brain,  denude  them  of  their 
flesh  and  blood,  and  hold  them  up  before  his  eyes  as  cold 
and  sober  documents  printed  in  large  type. 

"  I  am  only — ah — just  making  myself — ah — begin  to 
realize  the  meaning  of  all  that  you  say,"  he  said  at  last, 
with  a  change  of  tone  which  his  wife  found  very  welcome, 
for  it  implied  that  a  measure  of  reason  had  returned. 
"  It  sounds  so  unnatural  at  first  that  it  rather  knocks 
you  down.     Do  you  think  the  fellow  is  mad  ?  " 

"  In  a  sense  I  do  ;  but  it  is  not  the  sort  of  madness  you 
could  prove  before  a  jury." 

"It  is  such  a  cruel  cold-blooded,  selfish  thing  to  do  as 
far  as  we  are  concerned.     He  has  not  thought  of  us  at  all." 

"  We  must  not  blame  him  for  that  altogether,"  said  the 
mother  of  his  son.  "  We  ourselves  are  also  a  little  to  blame 
there.  I  am  afraid  from  the  first  we  got  into  a  habit  of 
giving  him  too  free  a  hand." 

"  Yes,  perhaps  you  are  right.  And  so  in  the  end  it 
brings  him  to  this  !  " 

"  I  have  quite  lately  come  to  see  that  men  of  his  type 
need  to  b:  trained  with  unfaltering  care  if  they  are  to 
prove  the  equal  of  their  responsibilities.  It  has  been  our 
poor  boy's  misfortune  to  be  born  into  a  class  which  has 
found  it  perfectly  easy  to  pander  to  its  lusts  for  many 
hundreds  of  years.  And  it  has  an  hereditary  appetite 
also,  because  as  a  consequence  it  has  become  the  most 
self-indulgent  class  in  the  world." 

"  I  deny  that,"  said  the  hardened  aristocrat  vehemently. 

His  wife  expected  that  he  would,  and  indeed  had  spoken 
with  intention.  After  the  first  shock  of  the  wound  she 
saw  the  need  of  administering  an  anaesthetic  to  lull  the 
subsequent  agony.  Any  sm.all  diversion  from  the  imme- 
diate matter  that  was  racking  him  to  pieces  would  be  a 
charity. 

"  You  may  deny  it,  Edmund,  but  I  do  not  think  you 
will  be  able  to  disprove  it.     One  shudders  to  recall  the 

265 


BROKE    OF    COVENDEN 

host  of  impartial  witnesses  one  could  put  in  evidence 
against  us." 

"  There  are  no  impartial  witnesses  in  our  case.  Those 
who  are  not  on  our  level  would  always  pull  us  down." 

"  Why  ?  " 

"  Because — ah — they  do  not  like  us." 

"  My  dear  Edmund,  has  it  not  struck  you  that  they 
may  have  reasons,  very  excellent  reasons,  for  not  liking 
us  ?  There  is  not  a  lust,  not  a  whim,  which  place  and 
power  have  enabled  us  to  gratify,  that  we  have  scrupled 
to  gratify  at  their  expense.  Are  we  not  one  and  all 
brought  up  on  the  dogma  that  the  world  is  to  ourselves 
and  our  kindred  ?  Do  not  we  in  turn  imbue  our  children 
with  it  ?  Do  we  ever  hesitate,  I  ask  you,  Edmund,  to 
abuse  our  privileges  to  gain  our  ends  ?  Come  what  may, 
everything  is  for  the  best  in  the  best  of  all  possible  worlds, 
so  long  as  we  dine  off  silver  plate.  All  is  well,  provided 
we  do  not  defile  the  sources  whence  we  obtain  our  purple 
and  fine  linen  !  They  may  well  not  like  our  idleness,  our 
arrogance,  our  laissez  faire,  our  complete  insensibility  to 
any  interests  outside  our  own." 

"  I  have  not  the  patience  to  listen.  You — ah — annoy 
me.  You  might  be  one  of  those  orators  in  Hyde  Park. 
I  will  not  believe  we  are  so  bad  as  that.  If  we  are,  how 
have  we  got  our  position  and  how  have  we  kept  it  for  so 
long  ?  " 

"  We  have  never  found  it  very  easy  to  keep,  Edmund  ; 
and  perhaps  you  will  admit  we  are  not  finding  it  easy 
now.  And  I  suspect  in  the  first  place  we  did  not 
find  it  very  easy  to  come  by  ;  and  the  means  by  which  we 
did  come  by  it  might  not  strike  us  as  particularly  nice  if 
revealed  at  the  present  time." 

"  Why— ah— this  Radical  Socialist  talk  ?  " 

"  My  eyes  have  been  unsealed  a  little  of  late.  If  you, 
Edmund,  could  have  come  with  me  to  the  noisome  place 
in  the  north  of  London  in  which  these  poor  women  have 
lived  their  lives  ;  if  you  could  have  heard  them  talk  with 
perfect  candour  of  the  squalor,  hardship  and  disease  to 
which  tlie}'  have  been  bred,  to  which  generations  of  their 
forbears  have  been  bred  before  them  ;  if,  Edmund,  you 
could  have  seen  the  expression  on  their  faces,  it  might 

266 


OUR    FIRST    COMEDIAN 

have  unsealed  your  eyes  too.  Not  again  am  I  going  to 
permit  myself  a  judgment  of  people  of  this  sort.  It  is  a 
convenient  and  a  natural  thing  for  us  to  lay  their  mis- 
fortunes to  their  own  doors  ;  but  when  we  do  so,  Edmund, 
we  are  guilty  of  injustice,  and  we  ought  to  be  made  to  pay 
for  it.  Their  privations  are  no  more  the  fruit  of  their 
essential  viciousness  than  our  luxuries  and  privileges  are 
tie  fruits  of  our  essential  excellence.  I  say  it  might  have 
unsealed  your  eyes,  Edmund ;  and,  pondering  over  it 
a.Kl  meditating  on  it,  I  have  almost  come  to  believe  that 
i:  is  a  tardy  act  of  justice  on  the  part  of  the  god,  Circum- 
stance, ironical  rufftan  that  he  is  !  which  has  caused  our 
ruin  to  be  identified  with  these  unhappy  creatures  who 
have  suffered  at  the  hands  of  us  and  our  like  these  many 
hundreds  of  years." 

"  You — ah — mean  to  say  he  ruined  his  people  because 
of — ah — such  fantastical  notions  as  these  ?  " 

Broke  flung  up  his  head  and  snuffed  the  air. 

"  I  repeat,  Edmund,  that  I  am  not  sure  that  we  do  not 
deserve  to  be  ruined.  I  am  not  sure  that  it  is  not  just 
that  all  persons  such  as  we  have  proved  ourselves  to  be 
should  not  ultimately  go  to  the  wall.  As  a  body  we  have 
done  less  than  nothing  to  justify  our  existence.  We  may 
on  occasion  have  strenuously  opposed  projects  of  ameliora- 
tion and  enlightenment  for  our  weaker  brethren,  but,  as  far 
as  I  can  observe,  I  do  not  think  we  have  gone  beyond  that." 

"  Good  God,  woman,  this  is  cant,  Radical  cant !  If  we 
have  not  been  the  backbone  of  this  country,  if  we  have 
not  kept  it  together,  and  shall  do  again,  I  would  ask, 
who  has  done  and  will  ?  " 

"  The  classes  below  us,  whom  it  generally  suits  our 
purpose  to  ignore — the  workers,  the  thinkers,  the  traders 
the  people  who  must  eat  their  bread  in  the  sweat  of  theii 
brows." 

"  You — ah — should  go  into  Parliament  as  the — ah — 
representative  of  Labour." 

He  had  man's  contempt  for  the  polemical  faculty  of 
woman.  He  could  allow  her  a  free  hand  to  deal  with  the 
minutiae  of  daily  life.  He  could  even  admit  that  nature 
had  fitted  her  sex  to  cope  with  small  things,  for  were  they 
not  in  keeping  with  the  feminine  order  of  mind  ?     But  on 

207 


BROKE    OF    COVENDEN 

really  large  affairs,  on  political  questions,  on  questions  of 
precedent  and  tradition,  she  must  not  be  permitted  to 
hold  an  opinion.  No  woman,  however  wise  in  her  way, 
could  be  trusted  there.  If  any  better  illustration  of  that 
incontrovertible  truth  could  be  furnished  than  his  wife's 
attitude  towards  the  marriage  of  her  son,  and  her  advocacy 
of  socialism  and  democracy  in  order  to  justify  it,  he  should 
be  grateful  to  be  shown  it. 

"  This  is  what  you  women  do,"  he  said.  "  You  find 
a  grain  of  something  that  you — ah — persuade  yourselves 
is  truth,  and  you  make  a  peck  of  nonsense  out  of  it.  Let 
us  have  no  more  of  it,  please  !  " 

Mrs.  Broke  gave  him  no  more  for  the  time  being.  She 
was  not  sure  that  she  had  spoken  with  any  depth  of  con- 
viction. There  had  been  an  ulterior  motive  underlying 
her  argument,  which  at  least  in  a  measure  it  might  be 
said  to  have  fulfilled.  Mercifully  it  had  diverted  his 
mind  from  the  calamity  assailing  it.  And  if  the  tempest 
of  his  anger  could  be  divorced  for  the  time  being  from  the 
subject  that  had  called  it  forth,  there  was  the  hope,  per- 
haps too  slender  to  be  named,  that  the  first  furious  force 
of  it  might  pass. 

By  nature,  however,  he  was  a  man  with  a  great  power 
of  resentment.  In  the  metaphor  of  his  brother-in-law, 
"  he  was  a  stayer."  He  could  brood  upon  a  private 
wrong.  And  by  taking  thought  his  sense  of  outrage  was 
not  likely  to  grow  less.  When  one  of  his  few  primary 
ideas  was  touched  he  was  indeed  formidable.  Reason 
could  not  reach  him  then.  The  tenderest  or  most  burning 
appeal  would  leave  him  as  stone.  And  if  it  seemed  neces- 
sary to  arm  his  heart  against  the  first  object  of  its  affec- 
tion, he  was  the  man  for  the  deed.  He  could  be  very 
hard,  very  pitiless  at  the  dictation  of  justice. 

At  dinner  that  evening  the  first  evidence  occurred  of 
his  drastic  temper.  The  girls  were  talking  across  the 
table  among  themselves,  and  the  name  of  their  brother, 
which  was  oftener  on  their  lips  perhaps  than  any  other, 
was  being  freely  interchanged. 

"Joan,"  said  their  father,  in  a  tone  that  was  to  dwell  in 
their  ears  for  evermore,  "  oblige  me  by  never  mentioning 
that  name  again  when  I  am  present." 

2b8 


OUR    FIRST   COMEDIAN 

The  startled  creatures  shot  bewildered  glances  at  one 
another,  and  then  at  their  mother.  There  was  the 
blankest  stupefaction  in  their  faces ;  but  their  mother 
replied  to  them  with  the  peculiar  inscrutability  that  was 
hers  always.  As  usual  she  was  a  closed  book,  of  which 
not  a  line  could  be  read.  But  the  blow  had  fallen  from 
the  hand  of  one  who  was  a  friend,  a  comrade  ;  from  the 
hand  of  one  whose  natural  accessibility  rendered  it  tragic. 
He  had  never  used  such  a  tone  to  them  before.  It  was 
terrible.  It  probably  distressed  them  more  than  he  was 
aware  ;  a  single  word  from  him  had  the  power  to  lacerate 
Even  as  it  was  he  saw  their  startled  scarlet  faces,  and  his 
over%veening  tenderness  for  them  came  to  their  aid. 

"  Something  has  happened,"  he  said  less  harshly. 
"  You — ah — must  get  your  mother  to  explain  it  to  you." 

Again  they  turned  their  covert  glances  to  their  mother, 
but  her  face  was  masked  with  a  meek  smile. 

Afterwards,  in  privacy,  husband  and  wife  sat  late  into 
the  night.  Broke,  with  a  premeditation  unusual  in  him, 
waited  until  he  had  dined,  with  the  aid  of  a  bottle  of 
sound  claret,  before  he  put  forth  the  attempt  to  enter 
into  definite  dealings  with  the  matter.  He  wished  to 
gird  himself  in  the  security  of  a  right  and  reasonable 
mind.  He  wanted  to  grapple  v^dth  the  thing,  to  look  all 
round  it  before  he  acted  ;  and  when  act  he  did  he  felt  it 
must  not  be  said  that  he  was  moved  to  do  so  in  a  moment 
of  passion  or  imperfect  sanity. 

Upon  taking  thought  he  sat  down  after  dinner  and 
composed  a  letter  with  compressed  lips.  He  composed  it 
with  a  slowness  and  a  deliberation  of  spirit  that  sealed  the 
doom  of  himself  as  well  as  that  of  his  son.  The  sounding 
of  the  last  trump  could  not  have  been  more  final.  It  was 
a  bitter  and  unworthy  production,  but  mercifully  short. 
There  was  not  a  word  in  it  that  a  father  is  not  entitled  to 
employ  to  his  offspring  ;  not  a  word,  not  a  phrase,  en- 
croached beyond  the  bald  truth  and  the  dictates  of  polite- 
ness ;  but  the  tone  was  vigour  without  warmth,  brutality 
without  vehemence.  It  was  absolutely  frigid  and  un- 
emotional ;  in  it  the  furiously  outraged  pride  of  the  writer 
was  cloaked  less  effectually  than  he  thought. 

In  effect  he  informed  him  that,  in  consideration  of  his 
269 


BROKE    OF    COVENDEN 

recent  act,  he  was  his  son  no  more  except  in  name.  He 
regretted  it  was  not  in  his  power  to  denude  him  of  that 
sole  identification  of  what  he  had  been  formerly.  Had  it 
been  possible  he  would  have  done  so,  since  he  had  been 
at  such  pains  to  prove  his  unfitness  for  the  custody  of  so 
high  and  fair  a  thing.  He  proceeded  to  pass  a  sentence 
of  banishment.  His  act  had  put  him  outside  the  pale  of 
his  friends  ;  irrevocably  it  had  cut  him  off  from  his  kind. 
Not  again  was  he  to  set  foot  in  that  house  ;  his  name  was 
not  to  be  spoken  in  it ;  and  on  the  understanding  that 
he  was  not  to  attempt  the  contamination  of  his  sisters, 
and  that  he  did  not  prejudice  his  family  by  appearances  in 
the  neighbourhood,  he  was  to  be  in  receipt  of  two  hundred 
pounds  a  year.  It  was  suggested  that  he  should  obtain  an 
exchange  from  his  present  regiment  of  the  Household 
Cavalry  to  a  less  expensive  branch  of  the  service  at  the 
earliest  opportunity,  as  under  no  circumstances  would 
the  sum  in  question  be  augmented.  Sacrifices  had  for- 
merly been  made  to  maintain  him  in  a  state  of  decency. 
Since  he  had  now  ceased  to  have  a  regard  for  decency, 
they  would  be  discontinued.  He  was  also  to  understand 
that  even  the  sum  of  two  hundred  pounds  a  year  was 
provisional.  It  was  in  the  power  of  his  future  conduct 
to  forfeit  it.  The  writer  went  the  length  of  conveying  a 
not  very  obscure  hint  to  the  effect  that  this  allowance, 
meagre  as  it  was,  would  not  have  been  made  had  there 
been  another  bearer  of  his  name  in  the  male  line  to  per- 
petuate it. 

Mrs.  Broke  read  this  unfortunate  production  with  a 
flushed  face  and  a  very  odd  expression.  When  she  had 
finished  she  stood  a  moment  irresolutely  looking  at  her 
Ausband.  ^ 

"  Fortunately,  you  cannot  send  it  to-night.  It  is  well 
that  you  will  be  able  to  sleep  upon  it." 

"  I  do  not  give  another  thought  to  it." 

"  Not  to  do  so  will  be  very  injudicious." 

"  I  cannot  agree  with  you.  No  amount  of  reflection 
would  lead  me  to  alter  a  word.  It  quite  expresses  what 
I  wish  to  say." 

"  But  it  is  irrevocable." 

"  It  is  intended  to  be." 

270 


OUR   FIRST   COMEDIAN 

The  mother  laid  her  hand  on  his  arm. 

"  You  cannot  mean  that,"  she  said,  with  a  frightened 
look  in  her  eyes.  "  I  do  not  think  you  realize  what  it 
means." 

"  He  will,"  said  the  father  coldly. 

"  You  cannot  realize  how  wrong,  how  inhuman  it  is  !  " 

"It  may  or  it  may  not  be  as  you  say,  but  I  fancy  as 
far  as  our  peace  of  mind  is  concerned,  we  shall  do  well  to 
consider  the  matter  closed  once  and  for  all.  We  close  it 
now  with  your  permission.  " 

"  I  do  not  give  it,  I  cannot  give  it !  "  said  the  mother 
a  Uttle  \vildly. 

Broke  sealed  the  letter  carefully  without  offering  a 
reply.     His  wife  took  him  by  the  arm. 

"  I  feel  sure  you  do  not  appreciate  all  that  is  involved," 
she  said,  turning  her  scared  face  up  to  him.  "He  is  all 
you  have  left.  " 

"  Had  I  another  I  would  not  contribute  a  farthing  to 
his  maintenance." 

The  mother  flushed. 

"  You  speak  like  a  savage,"  she  said,  strangling  a 
groan. 

The  mask  of  inscrutability  she  wore  habitually  was  in 
danger  of  falling  from  her. 

"  You  cannot  do  it,  Edmund,"  she  said  in  a  rather  thin 
voice.  "  It  will  cost  too  much.  There  is  no  other.  Think 
what  it  means." 

Broke  presented  a  stony  disregard.  His  gesture,  or 
rather  his  absence  of  gesture,  was  outlined  to  suggest 
that  he  was  already  a  little  weary.  Exhibitions  of  emotion 
and  that  kind  of  neurotic  display  were  apt  soon  to  become 
tiresome.  But  give  Jane  her  due,  she  was  not  in  the  habit 
of  indulging  in  them. 

"  Edmund.  I  beseech  you  to  listen  " — there  was  a  note 
of  terror  in  her  voice — "  when  all  is  said,  he  is  comparatively 
a  boy,  a  child.     He  did  not  know  what  he  did." 

"  That  is  not  true,"  said  Broke,  with  leisurely  directness. 
"  He  knew  what  he  did,  but  he  did  not  care.  If  he  did 
not  know  what  he  did,  why  did  he  not  take  dayHght  to 
it,  like  an  honest  man  ?  " 

The  mother  permitted  herself  a  palpable  lie. 
271 


BROKE    OF    COVENDEN 

"  He  was  thinking  of  poor  Maud,"  she  said,  flushing 
again  and  turning  away  her  face.  "  He  would  have  done 
it  openly  had  not  her  name  been  associated  with  his  so 
publicly.  I  blame  myself  for  that.  He  wanted  to  spare 
her  as  much  as  he  could.     It  is  to  his  credit." 

Broke  having  suppressed  a  yawn,  forced  himself  to  take 
a  renewed  interest  in  the  discussion  at  this  original  twist 
to  it.  He  opened  his  eyes  very  wide,  and  his  somewhat 
cruel  smile  sank  into  her. 

"  I — ah — don't  believe  you,"  he  said.  "  1 — ah— don't 
believe  any  of  you  women.  You  stick  at  nothing  at  a  pinch. 
You  have  a  brief  to  patch  up  the  best  peace  you  can,  and 
this  is  how  you  do  it." 

"  And  if  I  do,"  said  his  wife,  a  little  stung. 

"  Ha,  there  you  go  !  Now  suppose  I  give  you  a  word  of 
advice.  Do  not  interfere.  You  cannot  understand.  You 
will  be  wise  to  close  the  matter  here  and  now." 

It  could  not  be  said  of  Mrs.  Broke  that  she  was  deficient 
in  spirit.  A  grim  light  burnt  in  her  eyes.  It  generally 
portended  mischief,  as  her  daughters  were  so  well  aware. 

"  When  will  you  understand,  Edmund,"  she  said  with 
a  calmness  that  was  memorable,  "  that  you  are  not  a 
mediaeval  baron  hving  in  the  eleventh  century.  You 
must  please  forget  your  lance  and  your  poleaxe,  and  re- 
member this  is  a  civilised  age." 

She  was  beginning  to  feel  that  she  was  in  imminent 
danger  of  losing  her  temper.  The  tactician  was  already 
merged  in  the  woman  and  the  mother.  But  she  knew 
that  the  moment  she  did  so  she  might  at  once  renounce 
her  cause.  To  lead  Broke  was  possible  under  some  con- 
ditions, but  any  attempt  at  force  must  mean  disaster. 
The  instant  she  set  up  her  own  indomitable  will  against 
his  she  must  be  overthrown,  for  granting  that  they  were 
of  an  equal  calibre,  the  man's  inalienable  prerogative  still 
remained  to  him  of  knocking  her  down. 

Once  again  she  had  to  make  the  admission  that  he  was 
a  terrible  creature  when  his  blood  was  up.  The  survival 
of  the  savage  in  him  made  it  no  woman's  work  to  tackle 
him.  Moral  suasion  and  the  mysterious  attribute  of  sex, 
her  chief  weapons  in  our  elder  civilisation  for  her  dealings 
with  the  monster,  had  little  sway  with  these  brute  natures. 


OUR   FIRST   COMEDIAN 

She  might  make  tacit  appeals  to  his  sense  of  chivalry ; 
but  they  are  likely  to  be  disregarded  by  your  savage 
animal  when  his  blood  is  up.  She  might  be  incomparable 
in  finesse  ;  accomplished  in  thrust  and  parry  work  ;  but 
these  mediaevalists  had  a  tendency  to  ride  into  battle 
swinging  heavier  weapons.  The  rapier  of  the  wittiest 
woman  that  ever  lived  is  of  no  avail  in  the  cap  d  pie 
style  of  fighting, 

She  was  conscious  of  a  great  anguish  rising  like  a  flood 
in  her  heart.  To  her  whose  life  had  been  a  long  victory 
over  emotion,  such  a  sense  of  its  power  filled  her  with  horror. 
If  she  lost  her  self-mastery  now,  her  son  was  doomed; 
yet  never  had  it  been  so  hard  to  retain. 

"  You  don't  understand,"  was  his  reply  to  the 
most  piercing  of  her  appeals.  "  You  can't  be  made  to 
understand.  I — ah — daresay  it  is  because  you  are  his 
mother.  I — ah — presume  there  must  be  something  wrong- 
headed  and  irrational  in  being  a  mother.  Take  my  advice 
and  say  no  more." 

"  I  cannot ;  beUeve  me,  Edmund,  I  cannot." 

Her  voice  failed  suddenly.  For  the  first  time  Broke 
saw  a  tear.  It  was  not  easy  for  her  to  weep.  Tears  of 
hers  had  to  be  distilled  drop  by  drop  out  of  her  unyielding 
spirit.  Broke  was  shocked.  He  had  a  reverential  tender- 
ness for  her,  deep  down.  She  was  very  dear  to  him ;  she 
was  a  part  of  himself.     He  took  her  cold  hand. 

"  You  must  bear  up,  old  girl,"  he  said.  "  I  know  it  is 
a  facer  for  you,  but  you — ah — must  try  to  keep  a  stiff 
upper  lip.  You  don't  understand,  and  it  is  no  good  my 
trying  to  make  you.  But  it  is  a  facer  for  me  too — a  devil 
of  a  facer.     I  hope — ah — you  will  do  me  that  justice  ?" 

Our  hero  fetched  a  groan. 

"  I  do,  I  do,"  said  his  wife.  "  If  I  did  not  I  would  not 
urge  you  to  reflect.  But  when  you  prepare  to  strike  off 
your  left  hand  to  avenge  the  misdeeds  of  your  right,  I 
cannot  stand  by  and  see  you  do  it." 

"  It  is  the  sign  of  our  decadence.  We  only  half  meet 
things  now.  There  should  be  no  half  measures  with 
those  who  offend  against  their  race.  I  would  cut  off 
every  mother's  son." 

Despdr  was  beginning  slowly  to  overspread  the  dogged 
273  s 


BROKE    OF    COVENDEN 

spirit.  Appeals  to  his  humanity,  his  paternal  instinct,  his 
sense  of  justice  were  vain.  There  was  nothing  she  could  do. 
The  indomitable  woman  made  the  admission  to  herself  in 
a  sudden  grinding  spasm  of  agony.  He  had  got  his  back 
against  the  wall  of  his  unreason,  and  nothing — nothing 
could  induce  him  to  budge.  It  made  him  bleed  to  see 
his  wife  suffer,  for  at  heart  there  was  none  more  chivalrous^ 
however  little  it  was  to  be  suspected  of  him.  But  he  was 
of  an  unfortunate  constitution  that  enabled  him  to  trace 
in  his  own  distress  a  justification  for  the  indulgence  of  his 
prejudice.  Had  he  loved  his  son  less  and  his  wife  less 
there  would  have  been  a  better  chance  for  all.  His  ovoi 
personal  pain  removed  the  last  doubt  as  to  whether  he  w*s 
acting  worthily. 

"  I  suffer  too,"  he  said  ;  and  in  that  statement  he  felt 
the  guarantee  of  a  lofty  disinterestedness. 

Mrs.  Broke  had  one  quality,  however,  that  we  like  to 
think  the  first  Napoleon  attributed  to  her  countrymen. 
She  did  not  know  when  to  give  in.  Strand  by  strand  she 
felt  the  rope  of  unreason  coiling  around  her.  Hand  and 
foot  it  was  fettering  her.  It  was  like  a  great  snake  pressing 
out  her  life.  She  could  no  longer  raise  a  finger  to  help 
her  son.  Broke  had  sealed  the  letter,  and  the  Hght  of 
reason  was  not  in  him.  A  desperation  came  upon  her. 
The  pole-star  of  her  life  had  been  her  reticence.  In  all 
crises,  all  dilemmas,  that  honest  guide  had  lifted  her 
upwards  and  on.  It  had  been  an  illimitable  source  of 
strength  in  her  combats  with  the  world.  It  would  be 
so  again.  But  in  this,  the  sharpest  pass  in  which  she  had 
ever  found  herself,  it  did  not  count. 

That  being  the  case  she  would  do  without  it.  She  would 
cast  off  its  fetters,  and  see  if  untrammelled  nature  could 
avail. 

"  Edmund,"  she  said,  "  it  sounds  a  little  theatrical  for 
you  and  me  to  refer  to  the  number  of  years  we  have  pulled 
tooether,  but  you  force  me  to  remind  you  that  long  as  we 
have,  this  is  the  first  occasion  I  have  begged  a  favour. 
On  those  grounds  I  ask  you  not  to  send  that  letter." 

Such  words,  jiroceeding  from  those  chaste  lips,  drove  a 
tremor  through  Broke's  unexpressive  features.  She 
clutched  at  it  hungrily. 

274 


OUR   FIRST   COMEDIAN 

"  I  have  fought  your  battles,  Edmund,  for  I  almost  shudder 
to  think  how  long ;  I  have  wrestled  with  your  bitter  poverty; 
I  have  pared  cheese  for  you  that  you  might  still  hold  on, 
in  the  hope  of  better  times ;  and — and  never  before  to- 
night have  I  asked  anything  in  return.  And  it  is  a  httle 
thing  enough,  now  that  I  have  asked  it.  Do  not  tell  me^ 
Edmund,  that  I  am  asking  too  much." 

"  You  don't  understand,  you  don't  understand,"  Broke 
muttered,  turning  away  his  face. 

"  Yes  I  do,  perfectly.  Do  you  suppose  you  have  a 
monopoly  of  even  a  common  degree  of  intelligence  ? 
It  is  your  pride,  your  ungovernable  pride,  and  that 
only,  intervening  between  us." 

Her  sudden  flare  into  vehemence  seemed  to  strengthen 
his  hand. 

"  Put  what  name  you  like  to  it,  but  the  matter  is  closed," 
he  said,  coming  back  to  his  air  of  finality.  "  And  as  you 
choose  to  call  it  pride,  a  man  worth  his  salt  has  a  right  to 
it.  A  man,  if  he  hasn't  it,  is  not  worth  the  coat  to  his 
shoulders." 

"Its  intrinsic  value  does  not  justify  one  in  pandering 
to  it  until  it  becomes  a  lust." 

"  That  is  unjust,"  said  Broke,  feeling  the  barb.  "  I  am 
as  much  knocked  about  as  you  are — probably  more.  Do 
you  think  it  gives  me  pleasure  ?  He  is  mine  as  much  as  he 
is  yours.  He  has  my  name  to  him.  And  yet  you  talk 
about  my  pride  being  a  lust.  It  is  the  most  unfair  thing 
I  have  ever  heard  you  say.     It  is  not  like  3'ou." 

She  had  the  satisfaction  of  seeing  that  she  had  drawn 
blood.  But  she  reined  herself  in  tightly.  She  held  her 
hand  although  the  opportunity  was  open  to  her  of  hitting 
very  hard.  Nor  was  it  policy  that  dictated  the  act  of 
self-denial.  Judge  the  man  as  she  might,  he  was  her  lord, 
the  person  for  wham  she  was  pledged  to  entertain  the  most 
unequivocal  respect,  the  most  unflinching  fidelity. 
Than  she,  at  that  moment,  her  sex  could  exhibit  nothing 
worthier. 

"  We  will  not  throw  stones  at  one  another,"  she  rejoined 
in  a  lower  voice.  "  We  are  too  well  acquainted  for  that. 
But  you  must  not  wonder  that  I  complain  when  I  find 
myself  denied  the  smallest  thing  I  have  a  right  to  look  for." 

275 


BROKE    OF    COVENDEN 

Broke  carried  her  hand  to  his  Ups  reverently. 

"  My  dear  girl,"  he  said  huskily,  "  anything — an5^hing 
but  that.  I  will  give  you  anything  but  that.  If  you  feel 
I  am  ungrateful  ask  me  for  something  else.  Do  you  think 
I  don't  recognize  what  you  have  done  for  us  all — what  you 
have  done  all  these  years  for  me  and  mine.  Do  you  think 
I  don't  know  !  There  is  not  your  like  anywhere ;  and  if 
it  could  give  you  pleasure  I  would  go  out  and  shout  it  in 
the  street.  You  have  been  the  pilot  that  has  kept  us  off 
the  rocks  all  these  years.  You  have  been  the  best,  the 
truest  friend  man  ever  had.  If  you  consider  me  ungrateful, 
you — ah — wrong  me  deeply.  Come,  we  will  say  no  more. 
We  are  not  the  people  to  throw  hard  names  at  one  another. 
My  God,  they  hurt !  " 

"  For  the  first  time  in  our  married  life,  Edmund,  I  crave  a 
boon  of  you." 

Our  first  comedian  covered  his  face  with  his  hands  for  an 
instant,  and  when  he  removed  them  it  had  seemed  to 
turn  gray. 

"  I  will  go  down  on  my  knees,  Edmund,  and  crave  it." 

Our  first  comedian  took  away  his  haggard  eyes. 

"  It  is  a  quarter-past  three,"  he  said.  "  Time  we  were 
in  bed." 

She  was  trembling  violently. 

"  You  deny  it,  to  me,  Edmund." 

"  If  you  will  go  first,"  he  said,  opening  the  door  of  the 
room,  "  I  will  turn  out  the  lights." 


276 


CHAPTER  XXII 
The  Jumping  of  the  Lesser  Wits 

FOR  several  days  after  the  news  had  been  communicated 
to  those  whom  it  most  immediately  concerned,  Mrs. 
Broke  hesitated  as  to  the  course  she  should  pursue  in  regard 
to  others.  Her  husband  and  Maud  Wayling  were  the  only 
people  who  knew  at  present.  So  clearly  did  she  foresee 
the  complications  that  must  attend  on  secrecy  that  she 
was  keenly  desirous  that  the  child  at  the  cottage  should  be 
established  on  the  footing  which  belonged  to  her  position. 
Of  course  it  would  be  easy  to  repudiate  her  altogether, 
and  in  the  eyes  of  many  it  would  be  hailed  as  the  only 
possible  course.  But  nature  fitted  her  to  take  her  place 
among  the  strong.  Emphatically,  she  belonged  to  the 
category  of  those  who  dictate  public  opinion,  not  to  the 
larger  category  of  the  humble  subscribers  to  it.  It  would 
be  supremely  easy  to  relegate  the  wretched  child  to  the 
limbo  from  whence  she  had  been  so  recently  evolved.  But 
she  saw  that  as  soon  as  this  was  done  the  only  hope  re- 
maining of  a  reconciliation  between  father  and  son  was 
forfeited. 

At  the  same  time  if  the  child's  identity  was  published 
at  once,  very  little  good  would  be  done  to  her  or  to  Billy, 
and  it  would  certainly  be  out  of  all  proportion  to  the  harm 
that  must  accrue  to  them  as  a  family.  Not  only  would  it 
provide  a  nine  days'  wonder  for  the  neighbourhood  ;  but 
tradesmen,  the  most  importunate  and  easily  alarmed  race 
under  heaven,  might  see  in  it  a  pretext  for  pressing  their 
demands.  And  again,  even  a  resolution  that  declined  to  be 
daunted  and  a  sapience  that  never  slept  yet  had  a  tincture 

277 


BROKE    OF    COVENDEN 

of  delicacy.  The  desire  to  stave  off  the  dread  hour  of  bank- 
ruptcy as  long  as  possible  was  very  real.  The  innuendo  of 
cause  and  effect  would  be  too  sharp,  too  indelible,  to  be 
borne,  even  by  a  woman  of  the  world. 

After  much  taking  of  thought,  Mrs.  Broke  came  to  the 
conclusion  that  for  a  time  it  would  be  expedient  to  keep 
the  catastrophe  from  the  public  knowledge.  She  deemed 
it  right,  however,  or  rather  politic — and  with  her  pohcy  was 
the  higher  form  of  righteousness — that  the  girls  should 
know.  Their  training  had  been  so  stern  that  she  felt  they 
could  be  trusted  with  a  secret  which  it  was  vitally  necessary 
to  the  well-being  of  all  should  so  remain.  Their  precep- 
tress saw  a  terrible  object  lesson  for  the  dutiful  creatures 
in  the  gruesome  story  she  had  to  unfold. 

Fright  froze  their  white  lips  when  they  heard  that  brief 
but  fantastic  history.  To  these  sophisticated  children, 
raised  in  a  very  hot-house  of  class  prejudice,  with  full  many 
a  generation  of  the  spirit  it  induces  wantoning  in  their 
veins,  the  thing  was  as  dreadful,  as  garish,  as  ghoul-like  as 
the  most  inordinate  nightmare  out  of  Poe.  At  first  they 
could  accord  no  more  credence  to  it  than  if  it  had  been  the 
wildest  of  all  the  Arabian  Nights'  Entertainments.  But 
it  hardly  called  for  a  moment's  reflection  to  teach  them 
that  for  once  the  inconceivable  had  come  to  pass.  Their 
mother  was  the  la.st  person  in  the  world  likely  to  regale 
their  minds  in  such  a  deplorable  manner.  Besides,  their 
father's  speech  at  the  dinner  table  at  which  they  had  not 
yet  ceased  to  shiver,  still  rang  in  their  ears.  And  for  the 
last  three  days  a  strange  pinched  look  had  been  observed 
in  the  white  marble  face  of  Miss  Wayling. 

In  their  own  ^omain  they  foregathered  to  talk  with 
gloomy  excitement.  Also  they  would  have  wept ;  only, 
with  the  exception  of  Delia,  they  all  had  their  mother's 
constitutional  frugality  in  the  matter  of  tears.  Compared 
with  the  rest  Delia  was  allowed  to  be  a  great  adept  with 
the  waterworks ;  but  this  black  afternoon,  strangely 
enough,  she  was  the  only  one  who  betrayed  no  disposition 
to  utilize  her  undoubted  abilities  in  this  kind.  They  even 
grew  a  little  angry  with  her  indifference  on  the  present 
occasion  to  the  value  of  her  gift.  They  would  have  shed 
fountains  had  not  nature  been  so  austere.     But  Delia,  who 


THE    LESSER   WITS 

could  have  done  so,  was  seen  to  refrain.  She  had  the  power 
to  weep  co]^ious  tears  over  the  commonest  circumstance  ; 
but  now,  when  they  were  expected  of  her,  and  in  a  sense 
demanded,  as  an  acknowledgment  of  the  poignant  dis- 
tress, the  desperate  sorrow,  of  one  and  all,  she  sat  looking 
frightened  indeed,  like  the  rest,  but  without  so  much  as  one 
in  her  eye.  It  was  inconsistent ;  and  in  one  who  could  weep 
it  was  unfeehng,  not  to  say  an  exhibition  of  bad  form. 

"  Deha,"  said  Joan,  "  I  don't  think  you  quite  appre- 
ciate what  has  happened.  I  am  sure  you  would  take  it 
more  to  heart  if  you  did." 

"  I  don't  see  why  we  should  be  so  gloomy,"  said  Delia, 
"  if  they  were  really  in  love." 

"  If  you  talk  like  that,"  said  Joan,  "  you  must  go  out 
of  the  room." 

Delia  looked  bewildered. 

"  If  they  were  really  in  love,"  she  persisted,  with  a  shake 
of  the  head,  and  a  half-smile  to  herself. 

At  once  they  fell  upon  Delia.  With  enormous  gusto  they 
fell  upon  her.  They  rent  her  in  pieces.  They  proved  to 
their  own  sombre  satisfaction  that  her  point  of  view  was 
outrageous.  Delia,  however,  seemed  quite  incapable  of 
apprehending  the  nature  of  the  position  she  had  taken  up. 
That  subtle  twist  in  her  youthful  mind  to  which  their 
attention  had  been  directed  several  times  had  never  been  so 
painfully  in  evidence. 

"  You  know  what  father  once  said  of  you,"  they  reminded 
her  with  the  mournful  triumph  of  despair.  "  You  have  not 
forgotten,  Delia,  that  father  said  once  that  had  you  been  a 
boy  you  might  have  grown  up  to  be  a  Radical." 

"  I  don't  quite  know  what  a  Radical  is,  but  perhaps  it  is 
something  that  is  rather  nice,"  said  their  youngest  sister, 
with  a  perfectly  horrid  impenitence. 

"  Delia  !  "  they  sang  together. 

"  I  know  I  don't  see  things  as  you  see  them,  and  I  sup- 
pose I  am  ver}'  wicked  because  I  don't ;  but  it  would  not  be 
honest  to  say  I  do  if  I  do  not,  would  it  ?  " 

"  \Ve  are  all  very  much  ashamed  of  you,"  said  Joan, 
with  a  sternness  that  made  Delia  feel  very  frightened. 
"  You  talk  just  like  a  person  out  of  a  common  family." 

"  I  feel  like  one,"  said  Delia. 
279 


BROKE    OF    COVENDEN 

"  Delia  !  "  they  gasped. 

"  I  know  I  ought  to  feel  myself  to  be  above  others,  but  I 
don't  at  all.  I  feel  just  the  meanest  and  weakest,  the  most 
small  and  most  wretched  person  you  can  find  anywhere. 
I  don't  feel  a  bit  better  than  anybody  else,  although  my 
name  is  Broke.  In  fact  I  would  rather  be  anybody  than 
who  I  am." 

"  Deha  !  "  they  shouted. 

Here  was  anarchy. 

"  I  can't  help  it.  I  know  I  am  very  wicked  and  low- 
spirited,  but  that  is  how  I  feel.  There  is  no  pleasure  in 
trying  to  persuade  yourself  that  you  are  important,  if  you 
know  you  are  not.  I  never  could  make-believe.  I  daresay 
that  is  why  kings  and  queens  are  so  miserable.  Everybody 
bows  down  to  them,  and  says  nice  things  to  them,  and 
pretends  that  they  are  different  from  others ;  but  the  kings 
and  queens  know  all  the  time  that  they  are  not.  That  is 
what  makes  them  so  unhappy." 

"  Do  you  mean  to  tell  us  that  Billy  is  no  better  than — 
than  this  person  out  of  a  shop  that  he  has  married  ?  "  Joan 
demanded  with  a  fierceness  that  made  Delia  quail. 

"  Yes,  Joan,  I  do,"  said  Delia,  trembling  at  a  piece  of 
effrontery  she  knew  to  be  without  a  parallel. 

"  I  shall  tell  your  father  what  you  say,"  said  Joan,  wither- 
ing her  younger  sister  with  her  eyes. 

"  No,  you  must  not  do  that,"  interposed  Philippa.  "  You 
remember  what  father  said,  you  know,  Joan  ?  " 

"  Then  I  shall  tell  her  mother,"  said  the  Roman- hearted 
one. 

"  I  don't  care,"  said  Delia  drearily.  She  clasped  her 
hands  round  her  knees  and  fixed  her  eyes  on  the  celebrated 
picture  of  her  uncle  Charles.  "  I  cannot  help  it.  It  is 
wrong  and  wicked  of  me,  but  I  cannot  help  it.  When  you 
are  unhappy  your  long  descent  does  not  comfort  you." 

I,arge  tears  filled  her  eyes  suddenly.  They  completely 
obliterated  the  coloured  outline  of  her  uncle  Charles  on  the 
wall  before  them. 

"  You  don't  deserve  to  have  any  descent  whatever," 
said  Joan  with  a  snort. 

"  I  wish  I  had  not,"  said  Delia  through  her  sobs, 

"  You  are  what  father  calls  a — a "     Joan  paused 

280 


THE    LESSER   WITS 

with  a  deliberate  integrity  of  selection  to  hunt  the  one  word 
to  wipe  her  out.  "  You  are  what  father  would  call  a  Glad- 
stonian  Liberal.  You  bring  us  into  disgrace.  It  is  selfish 
and  debasing  and  weak-minded  to  talk  as  you  talk.  You 
are  unworthy  to  be  one  of  us.  Do  you  think  father  would 
have  forbidden  us  to  speak  of  Billy  in  his  presence,  if  Billy 
had  not  been  guilty  of  an  act  of  terrible  wickedness  ?  " 

"  Don't,  please  don't,"  said  her  youngest  sister  piteously. 
"  I  cannot  bear  any  more — indeed  I  can't." 

"  You  shall  not  be  spared,"  said  Joan  in  a  voice  that  was 
merciless. 

If  haughty  looks  had  the  power  to  slay  it  is  to  be  feared 
that  Delia  would  not  have  survived  her  present  ignominy. 
Her  five  sisters  were  too  quaintly  the  children  of  their 
father  :  the  old  Adam  that  animated  him  animated  them. 
They  also  were  subscribers  to  very  few  ideas,  but  those 
that  had  once  received  their  sanction  were  supported  with  a 
firmness,  an  absence  of  compromise,  that  became  a  religion. 
Such  heresy  as  this  of  their  youngest  sister's  they  felt  in 
the  bitterness  of  the  hour  to  be  a  stain  upon  the  fair,  the 
unsullied  escutcheon  of  their  fidelity.  It  impeached  their 
sacred  loyalty.  What  would  their  father  say  if  he  could 
hear  her  ?  was  the  thought  that  harrowed  their  minds. 
Officially  and  by  accident  of  birth  Delia  was  one  of  them. 
The  tie  of  blood  was  too  inviolable  to  be  broken.  The  slur 
was  on  themselves.  It  was  one  of  the  disadvantages  arising 
from  the  grand  hereditary  principle. 

"  This  is  the  doing  of  that  horrid  man,  th^+  horrid  book- 
seller," said  Joan,  who  had  been  taking  thought  where  to 
have  the  offender  for  the  last  two  minutes. 

Delia  winced,  as  though  she  had  been  burnt.  Her  face 
became  enveloped  in  a  sheet  of  flame. 

No  sooner  was  the  indelible  signal  hoisted  in  her  than  the 
unmerciful  beholders  knew  that  the  wretched  offender  bound 
hand  and  foot,  was  delivered  to  their  tender  mercies.  Never 
was  a  condign  punishment  merited  more  signally.  Not  only 
was  it  in  itself  a  crime  of  the  deepest  dye  to  be  guilty  of 
betraying  an  emotion  for  a  man  such  as  he,  but  they  saw 
in  it  an  additional  act  of  disloyalty  to  themselves.  It 
struck  to  the  roots  of  their  ascetic  principles.  A  misde- 
meanour of   this   magnitude   must   be   stamped   out.     It 

28 1 


BROKE    OF    COVENDEN 

threatened  to  poison  the  well  spring  whence  gushed  their 
few  but  wholly  sacred  tenets  in  all  their  virgin  purity.  Joan, 
and  Joan  only,  the  high  and  inflexible,  the  one  having 
authority,  their  father's  deputj^  must  take  up  this  matter 
alone  and  in  person.  She  must  administer  the  extreme 
rigour  of  the  law,  because  if  such  an  intolerable  spirit  was 
allowed  to  manifest  itself  without  check  in  one  so  young 
there  was  no  saying  to  what  it  might  lead.  One  and  all 
fell  back  in  silence  before  this  august  instrument  of  justice. 

"  Delia,"  said  Joan  very  slowly.  "  Your  words  and 
conduct  are  disgraceful.  We  are  so  ashamed  of  you  that 
we  wish  you  were  not  our  sister." 

The  other  four  huddled  together  with  awe-stricken  looks, 
but  there  was  a  full  measure  of  approval  in  their  fierce  eyes. 

An  Uncle  Charles  kind  of  look  came  over  Delia.  When 
it  appeared  in  him  it  never  failed  to  arouse  their  pity;  but 
now  in  their  young  sister  it  seemed  merely  contemptible. 
It  was  a  look  of  despair  which  j^ou  sometimes  saw  in  the 
eyes  of  a  hound  when  it  was  going  to  be  beaten.  But  Joan 
was  not  the  person  to  spare  her. 

"  You  disgrace  us  all,"  said  Joan.  "  You  are  everything 
that  is  horrid,  wicked,  and  imjiossible." 

"  I  am  not,"  soid  Delia,  with  a  sudden  but  totally  inde- 
fensible flutter  of  spirit. 

"  Yes  you  are  !  "  they  shouted  in  chorus. 

Women  are  like  the  baser  animals :  they  grow  mad  with 
valour  when  opposed  to  those  who  cannot  defend  them- 
selves. These  were  high-hearted  and  fearless  creatures, 
but  as  soon  as  they  had  their  young  sister  delivered  without 
weapons  into  their  hands,  their  sex  urged  them  to  fall 
upon  her  claw  and  fang. 

"  You  are  friends  with  that  bookseller,  you  know  you 
are,"  they  shouted.  "  We  believe  3'ou  have  hardly  left 
off  crying  since  he  went  away  to  London.  You  are  dis- 
gracing us  all.  It  is  quite  true  what  Joan  says  :  you  are 
everything  that  is  horrid,  wicked,  and  impossible.  You  ' 
are  a  Radical,  a  Socialist,  and  a  Democrat.  You  know  you 
are,  and  you  cannot  deny  it.  Your  father  has  known  it 
for  a  long  time,  only  he  is  too  kind  to  say  so.  We  don't 
know  how  you  dare  to  cry  about  that  low  and  shabby  book- 
seller.    If  you  must  cry  over  something  you  might  at  least 

2S2 


THE    LESSER    WITS 

have  the  decency  to  reserve  your  tears  for  a  gentle- 
man." 

"  Or  why  not  a  dog  or  a  tame  pheasant,"  said  Phihppa 
the  ever-practical,  "  if  you  feel  you  must  cry  over  some- 
thing." 

Delia  had  been  crushed  to  silence  as  long  as  their  taunts 
were  levelled  at  her  alone.  Her  private  opinion  of  herself 
was  so  mean  that  she  felt  she  must  deserve  them.  But  now 
they  were  hurled  at  one  whose  personal  character  she  was 
convinced  was  unassailable,  she  felt  her  feet  on  ground 
sufficiently  firm  to  take  a  stand  upon  it. 

"  You  shall  not  talk  of  him  like  that,"  she  whimpered, 
with  her  blue  eyes  flashing,  and  a  tear  running  along  her 
nose.  "  He  is  as  much  a  gentleman  as  father,  or  Billy,  or 
Uncle  Charles  is.  He  could  not  be  guilty  of  a  mean  action 
if  he  tried  ;  I  don't  think  he  could  be  capable  of  a  mean 
thought  ;  and  if  you  think  it  is  a  disgrace  for  him  to  be 
poor,  the  disgrace  is  yours  for  having  such  ideas.  It 
would  be  impossible  for  him  to  have  such  opinions 
and  to  speak  as  horridly  as  you  are  speaking  now.  His 
mind  is  too  high  to  find  room  for  such  cruel  and  vulgar 
thoughts.  He  would  not  know  what  you  meant.  He  did 
not  know  what  mother  meant  when  she  once  talked  to  him 
as  you  are  talking  now." 

"  A  little  horror  of  a  bookseller  !  A  shabby  and  under- 
sized httle  man  !  "  they  snorted. 

Their  youngest  sister  was  not  quite  so  defenceless  as  they 
had  supposed.  She  was  getting  in  one  or  two  shrewd 
knocks  of  her  own,  and  feeling  them  when  they  least  ex- 
pected, they  began  in  a  fury  of  retaliation  to  hit  out  wildly, 
with  poor  and  uncertain  aim. 

Delia  was  exulting  in  new  courage  because  desperation 
had  found  weapons  for  her.  And  she  knew  they  were  far 
more  formidable  than  any  in  their  possession.  She  had 
greater  resources  of  vocabulary  than  had  they,  a  livelier 
imagination,  and  a  much  finer  array  of  ancient  and  modern 
parallels  with  which  to  assault  them.  They  had  always 
boasted  of  their  tremendous  contempt  for  books  ;  they 
should  now  see  how  nice  it  was  to  have  them  for  yoiur  friends 
when  it  came  to  fighting. 

"  You  do  not  deserve  to  be  argued  with,"  said  Delia, 

283 


BROKE    OF    COVENDEN 

valiant  in  this  thought.  "  Your  minds  are  so  poor  and 
wretched  that  they  are  not  worthy  of  notice.  But  I  will 
just  say  this.  I  was  reading  the  other  day  a  book  by  a  great 
author  that  you  have  not  even  heard  of,  so  it  is  no  use  to 
tell  you  his  name.  The  book  was  called  The  Book  of  Snobs, 
and  the  people  in  it  were  so  cruel  and  horrid  and  low- 
minded  that  I  felt  sure  they  did  not  exist  out  of  the  writer's ' 
imagination.  But  I  now  find  that  they  do.  You  are 
those  people.  The  author  meant  you,  I  am  certain,  and  1 
am  quite  ashamed  to  be  connected  with  you.  I  don't  sup- 
pose you  know  what  a  snob  is.  I  will  tell  you  :  a  snob  is 
a  mean  admirer  of  mean  things.  Say  that  over  to  your- 
selves ;  and  I  wish  you  would  read  the  book.  Then  you 
would  see  just  what  you  look  like." 

They  were  quite  taken  aback  for  the  moment.  This  was 
not  the  Delia  they  knew  ;  the  Delia  they  could  snub  and 
bully  with  impunity.  This  was  an  armed  and  courageous 
Delia  ;  an  Amazonian  Delia  who  would  engage  and  pum- 
mel the  whole  five  of  them  singlehanded  at  once.  They 
had  never  been  so  astonished,  so  confounded  in  all  their 
young  lives.  Fancy  a  silly  little  kid  with  filmy  blue  eyes 
with  lashes  to  them  that  curled  up  at  the  ends  in  a  most 
foolish  manner,  a  silly  little  kid  who  wept  when  she  pored 
with  her  legs  crossed  over  a  fairy  story,  to  be  capable  of 
giving  such  a  display  as  that.  For  the  moment  their 
several  breaths  were  completely  taken  away  by  it ;  and 
one  and  all  were  smarting  in  various  places. 

As  usual  in  moments  of  crisis  they  paused  and  waited 
for  their  natural  leader.  The  intrepid  and  redoubtable 
gathered  herself  for  the  greatest  intellectual  effort  she  had 
ever  felt  it  needful  to  achieve. 

"  Books,  always  books  now,"  said  Joan  at  a  magnifi- 
cently forensic  leisure.  "  What  do  books  matter  ?  They 
are  wTitten  by  vulgar  people,  as  a  rule,  and  it  is  generally 
vulgar  people  who  take  notice  of  what  is  written  in  them. 
They  are  no  use  after  leaving  school,  and  they  are  not  much 
use  before  one  leaves.  I  never  learnt  anything  from  a  single 
one  m\self,  except  from  the  Badminton  hunting  book 
that  father  has  got  in  the  library.  They  make  nice  pieces 
of  furniture  in  pretty  bindings  in  mother's  room  ;  and  one 
or   two   on   the  tables  in  the  drawing  room  look  all  right, 

28  4 


THE    LESSER   WITS 

but  what  good  are  they  ?  I  always  did  despise  them, 
and  now  I  have  seen  a  real  author,  an  author  who  writes 
for  his  hving,  I  shall  despise  them  more.  We  knew  that 
professional  authors — aunt  Emma  is  not  a  professional 
author — were  generally  poor  and  dirty  and  low,  and  did 
not  cut  their  hair ;  but  until  I  had  seen  your  friend  the  book- 
seller, a  real  live- one,  I  didn't  know  what  really  wTetched 
things  they  were.  By  comparison  Wilkins  looks  respect- 
able and  Person  a  perfect  gentleman.  Why,  Shakespeare, 
the  leading  author  of  them  all,  was  a  common  poacher, 
and  if  he  had  come  before  father  at  the  Sessions  he  would 
have  had  to  go  to  prison." 

"  You  are  beneath  contempt,"  said  Delia. 

"  So  Aunt  Emma  says,"  chimed  the  other  four  eagerly. 
Joan's  passing  allusion  to  that  lady  had  given  them  an  inspi- 
ration. "  Now  that  her  young  man  has  taught  you  to  be 
bookish  you  begin  to  give  yourself  airs  like  she  does.  You 
are  learning  the  same  trick  of  talking  at  us,  although  you 
have  not  got  your  voice  quite  so  high  up  at  present.  But 
you  must  not  think  we  shall  stand  it  from  you,  you  silly 
cheeky  little  kid,  because  we  shall  not,  Joan,  shall  we  ?  " 

"  No,  indeed,"  said  Joan. 

"  I  hate  Aunt  Emma,  too.  She  is  beneath  contempt 
also." 

"  But  you  try  to  talk  like  her." 

"  I  don't ! " 

"  Yes,  you  do." 

Their  unlucky  reference  to  Aunt  Emma  had  taken  the 
wind  out  of  Delia's  sails  suddenly.  The  tables  were  turned 
at  once.  There  are  few  moments  harder  to  support  than 
that  when  the  noble  cause  we  have  so  gallantly  espoused 
before  the  mob  provokes  a  revulsion  of  feeling  within  our 
own  hearts  by  the  citation  of  the  charlatan.  Could  it  be 
possible  that  her  conduct  at  all  resembled  Aunt  Emma's  ? 
She  had  come  to  see  that  her  aunt  had  no  truer  feeling  for 
the  art  she  patronized  than  she  had  for  anything  else  in 
earth  or  heaven.  But  to  make  her  sisters  see  that  was 
hopeless.  To  be  a  lover  of  books  was  to  be  an  Aunt  Emma  : 
a  synonym  for  all  that  was  pretentious,  small-minded, 
insincere. 

In  the  end  they  routed  Delia  utterly  and  completely. 
283 


BROKE    OF   COVENDEN 

She  struck  her  colours  altogether  before  this  unlucky  men- 
tion of  the  author  of  Poses  in  the  Opaque.  The  fervour  of 
the  prophet  preaching  a  strange  splendid  gospel  to  Israel 
ran  out  of  her  as  suddenly  as  it  had  come.  She  was  beaten 
out  of  the  field ;  and  put  to  flight  to  her  bedroom,  that 
sanctuary  whither  she  could  take  refuge  in  tears. 


286 


CHAPTER  XXIII 
A  Descent  into  the  Avernus  of  Broad  Farce 

MANY  hours  of  late  had  Deha  spent  coiled  up  on  her 
counterpane.  In  the  very  moment  of  her  friend's 
departure  she  had  been  overcome  by  her  sense  of  loss.  She 
would  look  on  him  no  more.  The  fact  seemed  too  harsh, 
too  inexorable.  Was  it  not  terrible  that  a  spectre  should 
glide  across  her  life,  only  to  vanish  after  she  had 
gazed  on  it  for  one  brief  but  fatal  instant,  and  that  she 
should  be  left  haunted  for  ever  in  the  manner  of  the 
unhappy  knight  of  La  Belle  Dame  Sans  Merci  ?  He  had 
cast  a  fell  disease  upon  her  which  he  alone  had  the  power 
to  assuage  ;  and  without  even  a  recognition  of  her  pass  he 
rode  away  into  those  immeasurable  mountain  fastnesses 
in  which  he  would  be  lost  completely.  He  was  gone  from 
her,  leaving  only  a  memory.  He  could  never  return.  An 
unpitjang  introspection  had  taught  her  that  she  was  too 
poor  a  specimen  of  her  kind  to  arouse  an  emotion  in 
that  splendid  austere  spirit.  The  knowledge  did  but  render 
the  craving  to  do  so  more  consuming,  more  over -mastering. 
To  have  no  existence  in  the  bosom  of  the  gods  is  not 
humiliation  so  much  as  torment.  If  only  she  could  have 
given  him  a  faint  sense  of  what  her  great  devotion  to  him 
was  ;  if  only  she  could  have  kindled  just  one  little  spark 
in  him  of  recognition  of  her  entity  ;  if  only  her  nature 
had  possessed  the  requisite  scope,  the  requisite  power,  to 
have  imposed  itself  on  his  in  the  meanest  way,  she  would 
have  asked  no  more  !  It  was  the  knowledge  that  she 
had  been  unable  to  project  even  a  shadow  upon  that 
unsullied  consciousness  that  made  her  lot  so  forlorn,  so 
hopeless  beyond  expression. 

287 


BROKE    OF    COVENDEN 

He  could  not  know  now,  and  would  not  ever.  He  had 
gone  from  her  without  a  sign,  leaving  her  to  mourn 
the  day  on  which  he  had  come  into  her  life.  She 
would  read  his  name  in  the  London  newspapers,  but 
of  her  existence  he  would  have  no  record.  In  a  year  or 
perhaps  less  he  would  not  remember  that  she  had  been. 
Even  now  he  might  be  wiping  all  trace  of  her  out  of  the 
tablets  of  his  mind,  as  a  page  of  his  early  and  chequered 
history  which  he  was  eager  to  erase.  In  the  sharp  pangs  of 
bereavement  she  foresaw  that  from  year  to  year  she  must 
continue  to  bear  her  devout  adoration  to  the  grave,  without 
hope  of  honour,  without  hope  ot  recompense.  He  would 
never  guess  what  she  endured  for  him.  The  candles  she 
would  keep  burning  before  the  altar  of  his  splendid  memory 
would  have  not  even  the  sanction  of  his  pity. 

Against  the  instinct  that  pleaded  with  her  ;  against 
reason,  modesty,  reticence,  decency,  and  all  the  fetishes 
of  the  feminine  heart  she  had  clung  to  the  hope  that  he 
would  not  leave  her  desolate.  Right  up  to  that  last  day 
had  she  clung  with  a  frantic  fearing  spirit  to  the  thought 
that  was  hardly  more  than  a  wish,  to  the  hope  that  was 
hardly  more  than  a  desire,  that  he  would  permit  her  just 
one  evidence  by  which  she  might  recognize  that  she  actually 
counted  in  the  sum  of  things.  But  not  a  crumb  did  he 
vouchsafe.  He  bade  her  good-bye  with  the  slightly  tender 
ironical  simplicity  that  was  his  cloak,  his  external  mode. 
There  was  no  more  than  that  between  them.  There  was 
nothing  that  the  most  hungry  nature  could  accept  in  the 
dreary  years  that  had  to  come. 

A  thousand  times  did  she  recall  the  chords  of  his  voice  ; 
a  thousand  times  did  she  review  his  chance  phrases  and 
words  ;  a  thousand  times  did  she  re-paint  the  least  pre- 
meditated expressions  on  his  face^  It  was  in  vain  :  they 
did  not  offer  a  crumb.  "  I  am  not  so  much  to  him  now 
as  the  cover  of  a  book,  nor  have  been  ever  !  "  was  the  in- 
tolerable reflection  that  changed  the  bruning  tears  of  her 
heart  into  ice. 

The  child  had  hardly  the  stoical  pride  of  her  race.  She 
could  not  cover  the  ravages  in  her  callow  breast,  and  wear 
an  outward  smile  before  her  little  world.  She  could  not 
conceal  the  keenest  bites  of  the  serpent  proudly.       Her 

288 


THE  AVERNUS  OF  BROAD  FARCE 

lieaviness  of  look,  her  listlessness,  the  black  rings  round  her 
<'yes  were  there  for  all  to  read  who  were  curious.  Her 
sisters  read  fiercely,  and  requited  her  with  their 
contempt.  Every  day  she  met  with  a  fuller  measure 
of  their  scorn.  They  threatened  to  bar  the  door  of 
their  common  room  against  her.  Her  mother  was  too 
much  occupied  with  graver  matters  to  notice  her  un- 
happiness.  Besides,  their  ailments  were  so  few  that 
they  hardly  ever  troubled  her  ;  and  when  they  did  were 
always  so  little  complex  that  the  most  primitive  and  homely 
prescriptions  could  set  them  right.  Her  father  was  too 
little  addicted  to  the  habit  of  observing  anything  to 
penetrate  to  the  subtle  nature  of  her  malady.  Besides, 
it  was  so  elusive,  so  hypothetical,  that  in  any  case  it  would 
liave  defeated  him.  If  they  broke  a  limb  it  was  well  and 
good ;  it  could  be  set  in  splints  ;  but  you  do  not  ask  a 
Jiorse  doctor  to  diagnose  a  disease  of  the  mind. 

Strangely,  it  was  her  uncle  Charles,  a  person  entirely 
{jiven  over  body  and  soul  to  the  drinking  of  whisky  and 
water,  who  first  engaged  the  public  attention  to  the  Child's 
distress.  One  rainy  afternoon,  when  they  were  drinking 
lea  in  the  drawing-room  with  their  mother  and  father,  and 
t  heir  Aunt  Emma,  who  had  come  on  a  mission  of  a  chari- 
table nature,  their  Uncle  Charles,  who  also  had  hap- 
pened to  look  in,  not  knowing  that  aunt  Emma  was  there, 
•;ook  Delia's  chin  between  his  finger  and  thumb,  and 
oeered  at  her  for  a  long  time  with  his  head  cocked  funnily 
to  6ne  side. 

"  I  tell  you  what,"  he  said,  "  the  little  filly's  off  her  feed. 
Has  been  for  more  than  a  week.  At  first  I  thought  I  might 
not  be  seein'  straight,  but  now  I'm  dead  sure  I  am.  Wants 
a  bran  mash." 

This  solicitude  drew  down  a  great  deal  more  of  the  public 
regard  upon  Delia  than  she  felt  able  to  support. 

"  She's  right  enough,"  said  her  father. 

"  The  child  has  probably  been  over-eating  herself," 
said  her  Aunt  Emma,  after  a  steady  examination  through 
her  glasses. 

Her  mother  gave  her  the  benefit  of  a  patient  scrutiny. 
She  concluded  it  by  smiling  faintly.  There  was  little  that 
was  hidden  from  those  ruthless  eyes. 

2S9  T 


BROKE    OF    COVENDEN 

"  I  tell  3'ou  I  don't  like  the  looks  of  the  tit,"  said  her 
Uncle  Charles,  having  waited  in  vain  for  a  confirmation  of 
his  opinion.     "  I  should  let  her  see  the  vet," 

"  Nonsense,  my  dear  Charles,"  said  her  mother  amiably. 
"  He  would  only  give  her  a  ball.  There  is  really  nothing 
the  matter.  Her  studies  have  perhaps  excited  her  a  little. 
But  they  are  over  now  for  a  time.  Her  tutor  has  very 
inconsiderately  run  away  and  left  her." 

Instead  of  looking  at  her  brother  when  she  gave  this 
piece  of  information,  she  placidly  scrutinized  the  mobile 
face  of  her  youngest  daughter. 

"  It  is  an  act  of  inconsideration,  not  to  say  incivility, 
not  to  say  impertinence,"  said  Lady  Bosket,  winding  her- 
self up,  word  by  word,  into  a  state  of  indignation,  "  and  in 
the  letter  I  wrote  to  him  on  the  subject  I  took  the  oppor- 
tunity of  expressing  my  displeasure.  If  a  person  under- 
takes a  particular  task  one  expects  him  not  to  relinquish 
that  task  until  it  has  been  fulfilled." 

"  But  the  circumstances  were  somewhat  exceptional, 
were  they  not  ?  "  said  Mrs.  Broke,  with  an  instinct  for 
justice  it  occasionally  amused  her  to  betray.  "  Had  he  not 
to  take  up  a  more  important  post  ?  I  understood  so,  at 
least.  In  the  circumstances  one  can  hardly  expect  a  man 
of  ability  to  waste  his  time  over  a  dull  and  backward 
girl." 

"  He  did  not  hold  it  to  be  a  waste  of  time  before  he  obtained 
this  post  of  which  you  speak,  when  he  had  hardly  a  coat 
to  his  back.  And  I  would  venture  to  ask  by  whose  agency 
he  has  obtained  this  appointment  ?  " 

"  By  yours  ?  "  suggested  Mrs.  Broke  modestly. 

"  In  so  many  words,  perhaps,  I  do  not  choose  to  say. 
But  you  rather  force  one  to  admit  that  the  importance 
that  is  now  attached  to  one's  name  in  the  literary  world 
has  reacted  to  his  advantage.  If  one  may  say  it  without 
appearing  presumptuous,  one's  personal  sanction  is  the 
higliest  credential  he  can  seek  with  editors  and  that  sort  of 
people." 

"  That  is  to  say,  Emma,  in  plain  terms,  that  you  were 
indirectly  responsible  for  his  promotion  ?  " 

"  Indirectly  or  directly,  whichever  you  choose." 

"  Truly  an  interesting,  one  might  say  an  informing,  side- 
290 


THE  AVERNUS  OF  BROAD  FARCE 

light  on  the  way  in  which  things  are  managed  in  the  world 
of  letters.  Singular,  is  it  not,  how  the  floodtide  of  one  great 
reputation  carries  smaller  ones  irresistibly  forward  upon 
its  wave  ?  " 

"  It  is  always  so,  my  dear ;  always  has  been  ;  always 
will  be,"  purred  the  authoress,  whose  formidable  absence 
of  humour  made  her  the  predestined  victim  of  her  sister- 
in-law,  who  enjoyed  the  pleasure  of  "  drawing  "  her  when- 
ever she  chose  without  having  to  pay  for  her  entertainment. 
"  Believe  me,  my  dear,  one  never  obtains  an  overtopping 
reputation  in  letters  but  what  one's  imitators  and  hangers- 
on  reap  the  benefit.  There  are  writing  people  nowadays 
of  both  sexes,  they  can  be  counted  by  the  dozen,  who  by 
an  imitation  of  my  style  and  manner,  who  by  vulgarizing 
and  cheapening  it,  make  it  more  acceptable  to  the  market 
place,  and  thereby  are  in  the  habit  of  obtaining  larger 
sums  for  their  debased  copies  than  I  am  in  the  habit  of 
obtaining  for  the  original.  The  fact  is  a  painful  and  sordid 
one,  but  oh  !  so  true.  In  the  last  conversation  I  had  with 
my  old  and  dear  friend  the  late  Mr.  Gladstone,  just  before 
his  decease,  the  dear  man,  he  commiserated  with  me  upon 
this  point.  Although,  of  course,  as  I  told  him,  mere  money 
is  always  the  last  thing  one  cares  to  consider  in  a  matter  of 
this  nature." 

"  So  the  poor  devils  the  publishers  think  when  you  hawk 
your  prose  round  to  every  house  in  London  to  squeeze  the 
last  ha'penny,"said  Lord  Bosket,  taking  a  sip  of  his  favourite 
beverage. 

"  Charles,  what  do  you  mean  ?  "  said  the  authoress, 
raising  her  glasses,  and  preening  her  plumage  in  the  manner 
of  an  extremely  aggressive  cockatoo. 

"  Beg  pardon,  my  mistake,"  said  the  culprit  humbly. 

"  As  usual,  a  prophet  is  without  honour  in  one's  own 
country,"  said  the  authoress,  seeking  to  pass  over  this 
trying  incident  with  a  thin  smile,  and  a  laboured  attempt 
to  be  jocular. 

"  You  may  be  a  profit  in  your  own  country,  but  you 
ain't  a  bare  livin'  in  theirs,"  said  Lord  Bosket.  "  You 
haven't  forgotten  that  last  letter  Newton  &  Faraday 
wrote  you  to  say  that  if  3'ou  would  insist  on  a  royalty 
of  three  bob  on  a  volume  four  and  six  net  they  might  as 

291 


BROKE    OF    COVENDEN 

well  draw  down  the  blinds,  and  look  about  for  an  honest 
hvin'." 

"  Charles,  I  forbid  you  to  discuss  these  disgusting  com- 
mercial details  in  my  presence." 

"  Wrong  again,"  murmured  Lord  Bosket  sotto  voce  to  his 
nieces.  "  Crushed  again.  Never  open  my  mouth  but 
what  I  put  my  foot  in  it." 

"  Has  your  last  beautiful  and  ennobling  volume  been  a 
success  ?  "  asked  Mrs.  Broke,  pouring  out  fresh  cups  of 
tea. 

"  Not  half,"  said  Lord  Bosket.  "  I  read  in  the  Sportin' 
Times  that  it  has  stirred  the  great  heart  of  the  American 
Continent  to  its  profoundest  depths.  The  missis  and 
Matthew  Arnold  are  going  to  divide  the  cake.  Or  I  may 
have  seen  it  in  the  Times — same  thing.  Anyhow,  they 
want  her  to  cross  the  Pond  and  give  'em  a  series  of  lectures. 
So  do  I.  If  she  takes  out  the  same  series  as  she  has  given 
me  at  home  she'll  be  a  success.  I  don't  mind  layin'  even 
money  that  the  great  heart  of  the  American  Continent 
is  stirred  a  bit  more.  They  don't  know  what  they  are 
askin'." 

The  valour  that  was  in  Lord  Bosket  this  afternoon  was 
unusual.  As  meek  as  a  mouse  as  a  rule  in  the  presence  of 
his  lady  wife  he  seldom  went  out  of  his  way  to  court  her 
displeasure.  But  when  the  last  spark  of  a  masculine  spirit 
did  happen  to  reassert  itself  in  him  it  was  generally  in  the 
presence  of  others.  He  knew  that  he  was  then  compara- 
tively safe  for  the  time  being,  for  the  last  thing  his  lady  wife 
cared  to  do  was  to  make  a  public  display  of  her  prowess. 
A  scene  was  vulgar  ;  it  was  therefore  reserved  for  the  domes- 
tic hearth.  On  those  occasions  when  her  degraded  lord  had 
partaken  of  just  the  right  quantity  of  whisky  to  enable 
him  to  merge  a  proper  discretion  and  decency  in  a  natural 
love  of  chaff,  she  waited,  in  the  phrase  of  ladies  in  a 
less  exalted  station  in  life,  "  she  waited  until  she  got  him 
home." 

Probably  the  true  reason  for  Lord  Bosket's  intrepidity 
on  this  occasion  was  that  he  suffered  an  acute  agitation  of 
mmd.  Knowledge  recently  come  into  his  possession  had 
done  not  a  little  to  disquiet  him.  He  was  distressed  not  so 
much  on  his  own   account,  because  he  was  too  obhvious  of 

292 


THE  AVERNUS  OF  BROAD  FARCE 

the  world  to  have  a  shadow  of  trepidation  for  the  figure  he 
might  cut  before  it ;  but  rather  because  he  suspected  how 
irksome  it  must  prove  to  his  brother-in-law,  whose  character 
could  brook  no  public  ignominy.  With  his  customary 
solicitude  for  others,  he  felt  himself  already  to  be  in  a 
measure  responsible  for  the  galling  of  that  proud  spirit. 
He  could  not  forget  that  he  had  been  a  prime  instrument 
in  urging  Broke  to  accept  a  seat  on  the  Board  of  Directorate 
of  the  Thames  Valley  Goldfields  Syndicate.  With  his  own 
advice  and  example  and  with  powerful  aid  from  his  sister 
he  had  induced  Broke  to  pledge  himself  to  that  concern. 
He  had  seen  in  it  a  golden  opportunity  for  a  beautiful  in- 
effectual angel  of  commerce  to  profit  in  a  financial  sense, 
without  risking  one  of  the  pennies  he  could  so  ill  afford 
to  gamble  with.  He  was  there  that  afternoon,  however, 
to  inform  his  brother-in-law  that  the  great  scheme  had 
fallen  to  the  ground  ;  and  not  only  so,  but  it  was  his  dis- 
agreeable duty  to  have  to  prepare  the  nice  mind  of  this 
dilettante  in  trade  for  something  that  could  be  trusted  to 
shock  it  terribly.  Developments  were  expected  that  might 
totally  discredit  the  Board  of  Directors. 

"  I  saw  Salmon  this  morning,  Edmund,  and  he  tells  me 
we  have  got  to  face  the  music." 

Broke's  bewilderment  was  so  frank  that  Lord  Bosket 
felt  it  necessary  to  be  a  little  more  lucid. 

"  Salmon  says  you  know  that  there  is  no  gold  in  the 
Thames  Valley  after  all,  and  that  those  experts  were  all 
wrong.  And  he  says  the  shareholders  are  kickin'  up  a  dust 
and  are  askin'  for  their  money  to  be  returned.  Salmon 
says  they  won't  get  it.  All  the  newspapers  are  against  us 
dead,  and  the  Daily  Telegraph  says  that  when  the  matter 
is  sifted  it  will  be  found  to  be  about  the  biggest  take-in 
of  the  century.  Nice  for  us  directors,  what  ?  A  public 
inquiry  has  been  ordered,  and  they  are  sayin'  in  town  that 
if  we  directors  get  our  deserts  we  shall  find  ourselves  toeing 
the  line  in  the  dock  on  a  charge  of  conspiracy." 

If  Lord  Bosket  had  planted  a  bomb  on  the  carpet  he 
could  not  have  had  a  more  electrical  effect  upon  Broke. 
Our  hero  sat  up  in  his  chair  with  a  painfully  startled  face, 
with  much  the  same  wild  look  in  it  that  his  wife  had  observed 
when  she  broke  the  news  to  him  of  his  son's  marriage.     But 

293 


BROKE    OF    COVENDEN 

on  this  occasion  he  did  not  vent  his  feelings  in  words, 
beyond  the  monosyllable — 

"  Oh  !  " 

Lord  Bosket  at  once  put  forth  an  effort  to  soften  the 
rather  tragic  impression  he  had  made.  He  felt  a  pang  ; 
indeed,  Broke's  distress  was  so  great  that  it  would  have 
made  its  appeal  to  a  harder  heart. 

"  I  would  not  think  too  much  about  it,  Edmund,  if  I  were 
you.  Salmon  is  a  tricky  fish  and  knows  his  way  about 
under  the  water.  He'll  find  a  way  out,  don't  you  worry. 
He  says  if  anybody  is  to  blame  it  is  the  experts  ;  and  it  is 
not  likely  that  we  directors  would  be  holding  shares  if  we 
had  not  been  taken  in." 

"  But  I  don't  hold  any,"  said  Broke  in  a  hollow  voice. 

"  Fishy  transferred  some  of  his  to  you  in  case  of  accident." 

Suddenly  Lord  Bosket's  jaw  dropped. 

"  Yes  ;  and  that  reminds  me  he's  parted  with  'em  too  ! 
He  unloaded  three  weeks  ago  and  gave  us  all  the  office  to  do 
likewise.  He  sold  above  par — lord  knows  how  much  ! — 
and  now  you  can  have  Thames  Valley  Goldfields  at  one 
and  fourpence  a  hundred  if  you  want  'em.  But  Salmon  is 
as  clever  as  the  deuce  ;  although  it  does  look  a  bit  '  off,' 
what  ?  I  don't  wonder  that  we  have  got  to  face  the 
music." 

Poor  Broke  sat  in  a  huddle.  The  startled  look  that  still 
haunted  his  face  made  it  appear  that  he  had  just  had  an 
encounter  with  a  ghost. 

"  Surely  here  is  a  sequel  that  was  to  be  foreseen,"  said 
Lady  Bosket.  "  I  confess  that  I  predicted  it  from  the 
first.  People  who  associate  themselves  with  such  atrocious 
persons  as  this  Lord  Salmon  should  be  prepared  to  take 
the  consequences.  You  might  at  least  have  had  the  decency 
to  respect  my  feelings,  Charles.  Not  only  do  you  bring  your 
own  name  into  disrepute,  but,  what  is  far  graver,  you  bring 
mine.  Why  should  /  strive  to  enhance  it  and  keep  it 
fragrant  among  our  fellow  creatures  if  your  one  idea  is  to 
debase  it  and  to  cause  it  to  stink  in  their  nostrils.  I  only 
ask,  Charles,  that  you  should  have  a  little  respect  for  my 
feelings,  but  this,  apparently,  is  asking  too  much.  As  for 
Edmund,  I  am  sure  he  is  the  last  man  in  the  world  to  be 
able  to  afford  to  bring  his  name  lower  than  it  is  already." 

294 


THE  AVERNUS  OF  BROAD  FARCE 

"  Here,  kennel  missis  !  "  said  Lord  Bosket.  "  You  let 
Edmund  alone.  Don't  you  mind  her,  my  boy.  It's  all 
my  fault.  But  Salmon  will  find  out  a  way  all  right.  It 
may  be  a  bit  awkward  for  us  at  first,  now  that  these  share- 
holders and  people  are  showing  their  teeth,  but  we  shall 
come  out  top  dog  in  the  end  I'll  lay  a  monkey.  Fishy  is 
no  fool ;  take  my  tip  and  have  a  bit  on  Saul." 

"  We — ah — must  refund  every  farthing  of  their  money," 
said  Broke. 

He  had  been  sunk  in  thought,  and  this  was  the  result 
of  his  abstraction. 

"  A  little  item  of  four  millions  sterling,"  said  Lord 
Bosket.  "  I  should  like  to  see  Fishy  refunding  mere 
bagatelles  of  that  sort." 

"  It  must  be  done,"  said  Broke  firmly.     "  Every  penny." 

"  Well,  my  boy,  sell  3'our  house  and  furniture  and  throw 
in  the  mortgages  on  your  land  and  see  how  much  that 
makes  towards  it.  The  affair  has  a  rum  look,  I'll  admit ; 
but,  as  Salmon  says,  these  shareholders  and  people  had  the 
opinion  of  the  experts  to  work  by  the  same  as  we  had. 
And  now  the  experts  have  proved  to  be  wrong  they  are  going 
to  turn  round  on  us  because  we  had  the  good  sense  to  let 
go  before  we  burnt  our  fingers.  Salmon  says  there  is 
no  law  in  the  world  that  can  touch  us." 

"  There  is  one  in  heaven,"  said  Lady  Bosket.  "  It  is 
the  most  impudent  piece  of  scoundrelism  I  ever  heard." 

"  It  didn't  prevent  you  clearing  a  cool  three  thousand, 
missis,  by  selling  at  the  proper  time.  Hullo,  here's  Salmon 
himself." 

The  announcement  at  this  moment  of  the  promoter  was 
sufficiently  dramatic.  His  entrance  was  no  less  so.  He 
marched  in  with  his  habitual  air  of  victory.  Signs  of 
dejection,  of  hesitancy,  of  self-distrust  which  the  circum- 
stances might  have  been  expected  to  induce,  were  far  to 
seek. 

He  took  a  chair  magnificently.  "  They  have  arranged 
a  fete  and  gala  for  the  meeting  on  Monday,"  he  began,  "  but 
I  think  there  are  one  or  two  things  we  shall  be  able  to  put 
before  them.  If  we  can't  manage  that  parcel  of  calves  and 
crows  it's  a  pity.  Country  parsons  mostly  and  widows  in 
rusty  black.     I  wonder  if  they  think  we  are  going  to  take 

295 


'    BROKE    OF    COVENDEN 

any  of  their  sauce.  They  had  the  prospectus  to  go  by  th<s 
same  as  we  had ;  there  were  the  reports  of  the  experts  : 
Goodhffe's  analysis  of  the  mud  taken  from  under  Batter- 
sea  Bridge ;  Thomson's  Theory  of  the  Precious  Metal 
Deposits  found  on  the  foreshore  at  the  Welsh  Harp ; 
Wilson's  article  on  Bimetalism,  and  God  knows  what ; 
and  now  they've  put  their  money  down  they  ask  calmly 
to  take  it  up  again.  I  wonder  what  they  think  we  are — 
philanthropists  ?  Do  they  think  we  play  at  this  game 
merely  for  the  pleasure  of  seeing  our  names  in  print  ?  If 
they  had  had  the  common  sense  to  clear  out  when  we  did, 
I  wonder  if  they  would  be  wanting  now  to  repudiate  their 
shares.  Their  game  is,  heads  I  win,  tails  you  lose ;  but 
that's  not  good  enough  for  Salmon,  thank  you." 

"  Hear,  hear,  and  applause,"  said  Lord  Bosket.  "  1 
must  say  as  a  member  of  the  Board,  the  Promoter  of  th(j 
Company  talks  hke  a  cock-angel  with  wings  and  a  whit<} 
nightshirt.  I'm  not  what  you  call  a  bettin'  man,  Fishy, 
as  you  know,  but  if  I  were  I  should  place  a  monkey  on  you, 
my  son,  and  back  you  both  ways." 

"  You  would  not  be  wrong,  my  boy,  if  you  did,"  said  Lord 
Salmon  warmly.  "  You  would  not  be  wrong.  I'll  let 
them  see  on  Monday.  I  wonder  if  a  jury  of  matrons  think 
they  are  going  to  heckle  me." 

"  Yes,  I  think  they  are  on  the  wrong  boss,"  said  Lord 
Bosket,  with  a  quaintly  reflective  glance  at  his  glass. 

It  was  at  this  moment  that  Broke  was  seen  to  draw  him- 
self up  stonily  to  regard  his  unwelcome  visitor. 

"  Lord  Salmon,  I  should  like  to  say  a  word.  I  wish  in 
the — ah — fullest  manner  to — ah — repudiate  the  whole  of 
this  transaction." 

"  So  do  several  other  people,"  said  Lord  Salmon  drily. 

"  In  the  most  unconditional  way  I  wash  my  hands  of 
what  I  do  not  hesitate  to  call  a — ah — a  shady  business." 

"  Don't  hesitate  to  call  it  what  you  like,  my  boy;  but 
we  are  all  in  the  same  boat.  You  are  one  of  the  crew,  the 
same  as  we  are." 

Broke's  face  turned  a  deep  tawny.  There  was  a  power- 
ful gleam  of  anger  burning  in  him  which  he  tried  hard  to 
restrain. 

"  I  never  intended  to  go  on  this  Board  of  Directors. 
296 


THE  AVERNUS  OF  BROAD  FARCE 

I  was  led  and — and — ah — cajoled  into  so  doing  against 
my  better  judgment.  I  don't — ah — hesitate — ah — to — 
ah — ah — say  that  my  hand  was  forced  by — ah — circum- 
stances. At  the  time  I  did  not  know  precisely — ah — what ' 
I  was — ah — undertaking.  I  can  only  regret  my  ignorance 
and— and  my — ah — carelessness." 

By  the  time  our  powerfully  agitated  gentleman  had 
finished  this  impassioned  confession  his  face  was  even 
darker  than  when  he  began  it. 

"  Woa — easy,  Edmund,"  said  Lord  Bosket,  in  accents 
of  pity.  "  Don't  think  about  it,  there's  a  good  feller,  and 
it  will  all  come  right  by-and-bye.  It  will,  Fishy,  won't 
it?" 

"  Not  much  doubt  about  that,  my  boy,"  said  Lord 
Salmon,  accepting  a  cup  of  tea  from  the  excessively  gra- 
cious hands  of  Mrs.  Broke. 

"  Sugar,  Lord  Salmon  ?  " 

The  inordinate  sweetness  of  the  smile  she  lifted  up  to 
him  was  such  that  the  delighted  financier  said — 

"  Look  into  the  cup,  ma'am,  and  it  won't  be  needed." 

Lady  Bosket  took  up  her  glasses  and  stared  at  the 
epigrammatist,  while  her  eldest  niece  seated  opposite  to 
her  counted  mentally  as  far  as  one  hundred  and  seven. 

"  Lord  Salmon,"  said  Broke,  whose  agitation  was  in- 
creasing at  every  word  he  uttered,  while  his  face  grew  so 
black  that  it  looked  convulsed.  "  Lord  Salmon,  to  be — ah 
— ah — perfectly  plain  with  you,  I  cannot — ah — -I  cannot 
help  thinking  that  I  have  been  hoodwinked,  and — ah — 
that  I  have  been  made  your  tool.  I  am  a  plain  man 
and  speak  on — ah — these  occasions  what  is  in — ah — my 
mind." 

"  Quite  right,  my  boy,  quite  right,"  said  Lord  Salmon, 
nodding  his  head  in  approval.  "  Have  the  habit  myself. 
Admire  you  for  it." 

"  I  don't  ask  for  your — ah — your  admiration.  Lord 
Salmon.  In  fact — ah — I  would — ah — rather  be  without 
it.  I  see  clearly  that — ah — my  criminal — ah — ^folly  has 
placed  me  in  your  power.  I — ah — can  never  sufficiently 
deplore  it.  But  I  may  say.  Lord  Salmon — ah — I  may  say 
in  one  word,  that — ah — I  shall  conceive  it  my  duty  to — 
ah — attend  this  meeting  on  Monday,  when — ah — I — ah — 

297 


BROKE    OF    COVENDEN 

shall  make  a  statement  to  the  unfortunate  shareholders  to 
—ah— that  effect." 

Our  hero  concluded  the  longest  and  quite  the  most 
impassioned  address  he  had  delivered  extempore  in  the 
whole  of  his  life  by  pulling  a  huge  handkerchief  out  of  his 
pocket  and  wiping  his  head  with  tremendous  vigour. 

Lord  Salmon  could  not  forbear  to  laugh  lustily,  and  by 
so  doing  chose  to  ignore  the  signals  of  Lord  Bosket, 
who  wagged  his  head  at  him  in  a  series  of  energetic 
warnings. 

"  You  ought  to  go  on  the  stage,  my  dear  Broke,"  said 
Lord  Salmon.  "  You  are  too  funny  for  words.  A  humorist 
you  are  and  no  mistake !  Here  am  I,  out  of  sheer  respect 
for  you,  doing  all  I  can  to  put  you  in  for  a  good  thing,  and 
here  are  you  turning  round  to  bite  the  hand  of  friendship. 
Why,  my  boy,  do  you  know  what  I  did  ?  Said  I  to  myself, 
there  is  going  to  be  a  bit  of  picking  here ;  old  Broke,  who 
has  not  enough  about  him  to  see  these  things  for  himself, 
must  have  a  finger  in  this  pie.  He  must  be  in  at  this  ;  it 
will  do  him  good.  And  what  do  I  do  ?  I  daresay  our 
friend  Bosket  has  told  you.  No  ?  Well,  I  transfer  five 
hundred  pounds  worth  of  script  from  my  name  to  yours  ; 
partly,  my  boy,  because  I  want  to  do  you  a  good  turn, 
and  partly  because  it  looks  well  for  the  directors  to  pledge 
themselves  to  the  concern.  And  when  the  psychological 
moment  turned  up  a  week  or  two  ago  I  converted  that  five 
hundred  pounds  worth  of  shares  into  a  little  matter  of  four 
thousand  pounds  odd.  There  is  a  cheque  for  that  amount 
in  my  pocket-book.  And  yet,  my  dear  fellow,  on  the  top 
of  all  this  you  sit  there  and  give  me  the  rough  side  of  your 
tongue.  Still  I  don't  bear  malice  ;  others  might,  don't 
you  know,  but  personally  I  understand  you,  and  I  hke  you. 
You  old-fashioned  country  big-wigs  are  a  funny-tempered 
lot.  But  I  want  you  to  understand,  my  boy,  that,  as  a 
mere  matter  of  principle,  I  wish  you  well." 

"  I — ah — dissociate  mx-self  entirely  from  your  schemes," 
said  Broke.  "  I — ah — decline  to — ah — discuss  the  matter 
with  you  further.  I — ah — repudiate  the — ah — whole  trans- 
action, and — ah — on  Monday  at — ah — the  meeting  I — ah 
— shall  say  so  to  the  shareholders.  I — ah — shall  make 
—ah — a  statement  to  them  in  regard  to  my  position.     In 

293 


THE  AVERNUS  OF  BROAD  FARCE 

— ah — the  meantime — ah — Lord  Salmon — the — ah— 
matter  is  closed.     I — ah — wash — my — ah — hands  of  it." 

"  You  -wash  your  hands  of  this  ?  "  said  Lord  Salmon, 
with  an  air  of  keen  enjoyment. 

He  took  out  his  pocket  book,  and  produced  a  cheque 
for  four  thousand  three  hundred  and  thirty-five  pounds 
made  out  in  Broke's  favour.  He  rose  from  his  chair  and 
carried  it  over  to  our  hero.  With  a  quizzical  smile  he 
dropped  it  into  his  astonished  hands. 

"  This — ah — for  me,"  said  Broke. 

His  bewilderment  seemed  extreme. 

"  Of  course,  my  boy,  of  course,"  said  Lord  Salmon 
indulgently.  "  Ton  my  soul  you  are  funny !  You  are 
better  than  one  of  those  comic  operas  at  the  Savoy."  He 
burst  again  into  uncontrollable  laughter. 

In  the  meantime  Broke  had  looked  at  the  document^, 
and  was  able  to  divine,  by  a  superhuman  effort,  its  nature. 
With  great  deliberation  he  began  to  tear  the  paper  into 
very  small  pieces,  and  in  that  act  his  fingers  trembled  so 
violently  that  many  of  the  fragments  fluttered  on  to  the 
carpet. 

A  silence  intervened  that  could  be  felt.  It  was  broken 
by  the  protesting  voice  of  Lord  Bosket. 

"  Edmund,  you  are  a  fool.  I  should  ha'  thought  you 
had  more  sense  than  to  throw  good  money  down  the  gutter. 
It's  an  expensive  luxiury ;  not  many  fellers  can  afford 
it." 

"  It's  as  good  as  Charley's  Aunt,"  roared  Lord  Salmon, 
who  had  never  been  so  diverted  in  his  life. 

Without  trusting  himself  to  utter  a  word,  Broke  flung 
the  last  of  the  fragments  of  the  cheque  on  to  the  carpet, 
slowly  raised  himself  out  of  his  chair,  and  stalked  from  the 
room.  As  the  door  slammed  behind  him,  Lord  Salmon's 
laughter  grew  more  boisterous. 

"  Splendid  fellow  !  "  he  shouted. 

"  Lord  Salmon,  please  let  me  give  you  another  cup  of 
tea,"  said  Mrs.  Broke  melodiously.  Again  she  beamed 
upon  the  financier  in  a  dazzling  manner. 

"  Certainly,  ma'am,  certainly." 

"  Joan,"  said  Lady  Bosket  to  the  niece  who  sat  opposite, 
and  who  had  not  once  taken  her  eyes  from  her  face  during 

299 


BROKE    OF    COVENDEN 

the  last  quarter  of  an  hour,  "  I  will  trouble  you  to  ring 
the  beU." 

Joan  did  so  promptly,  and  with  almost  the  same  prompti- 
tude the  butler  appeared. 

"  Person,  my  carriage." 

Without  taking  leave  of  anybody,  Lady  Bosket  marched 
out  of  the  room  with  a  stateliness  that  verged  upon  carica- 
ture. 

Lord  Salmon  turned  to  Lord  Bosket  with  his  laugh 
subsiding  to  a  loud  chuckle. 

"  I've  read  Lady  B.'s  books,  Bos,  and  admired  them, 
but  I  don't  think  I  should  call  her  a  great  hand  at  con- 
versation. She  seems  to  have  a  habit  of  repeating  herself. 
Does  she  ever  say  anything  else  than  '  Porson,  my  car- 
riage '  ?  " 

Lord  Salmon  again  ascended  to  a  roar, 

"  That's  your  luck,"  said  the  husband  of  the  authoress. 
"  They  say  you  are  the  luckiest  feller  in  England,  and  they 
are  not  far  wrong.  I  wish  I  was  as  fortunate  myself.  But 
you  must  take  no  notice  of  the  old  dutch,  Fishy,  you  mustn't 
mind  her.  It's  only  her  playful  little  way.  She  is  not 
such  a  bad  old  thing  when  you  get  to  know  her." 

Lord  Bosket  having  made  the  necessary  amende  to  the 
feehngs  of  his  friend,  our  brace  of  peers  conversed  apart  in 
earnest  undertones.  They  were  fain  to  agree  that  they 
would  find  it  easier  to  take  the  Thames  out  of  its  valley 
than  to  divorce  our  hero  from  a  conviction  at  which  he  had 
once  arrived. 

"  He'll  do  it,  3^ou  know,"  said  Lord  Bosket.  "  He's  as 
stubborn  as  a  colt  if  he  gets  an  idea  into  his  great  fat  head. 
He  don't  get  many,  but  when  they  come  they  take  a 
lease." 

"  If  he  talks  at  the  meeting  as  he's  talked  to  me,"  said 
Lord  Salmon,  "  he  will  be  the  laughing-stock  of  England. 
He  must  be  stopped.  I  don't  like  to  see  a  man  like  that 
making  a  fool  of  himself." 

"  I'd  like  to  see  the  man  who  could  stop  him.  Obstinate 
feller  !  " 

"  A  thousand  pities,"  said  Lord  Salmon.  "  I  don't 
wonder  that  he's  coming  to  want  and  beggary.  If  a  man 
won't  move  with  the  times,  even  if  he  is  the  descendant 

300 


THE  AVERNUS  OF  BROAD  FARCE 

of  kings  and  vikings,  there  is  only  the  workhouse  for  him. 
We  are  no  respecters  of  persons  at  this  time  of  day.  That's 
what  these  blue-blooded  old  swells  have  got  to  learn.  Most 
of  them  have  learnt  it,  I  will  do  them  that  credit.  They 
know  now  that  they  can't  stand  before  the  cad  with  the 
moneybags.  Sooner  or  later  they  have  to  get  on  to  their 
damned  old  knees.  Old  Broke  is  having  a  longer  run  than 
most,  but  you  and  I  will  live  to  see  him  brought  to  it. 
He's  as  good  as  down  now,  although  he  doesn't  know." 

"  He  wouldn't  own  it  if  he  did." 

"  You  are  right,  my  boy  ;  but  mark  me,  sooner  or  later 
he'll  be  made.  When  Saul  Salmon,  as  a  very  young  man, 
first  came  out  of  the  east  and  put  up  his  plate  in  the  Lane 
the  nobocracy  would  not  turn  their  heads  to  look  at  him. 
But  now,  my  boy,  now  he  holds  them  like  this  in  his  two 
hands — so  !  they  lick  his  boots  when  he  wants  them  clean- 
ing. How  do  you  think  I  got  the  handle  I  wear  to  my 
name  for  advertising  purposes  ?  Simply,  my  boy,  by 
taking  them  so,  in  my  two  rough  and  grimy  paws,  and  half 
choking  the  life  out  of  their  nice  white  throats.  I  make 
them  writhe  and  grovel  now  just  when  it  pleases  me,  just 
for  my  own  amusement.  Without  my  purse  I  am  a  Cad, 
with  it  I  am  a  God.     And  don't  you  forget  it,  Bosket." 

There  was  lust,  there  was  arrogance  in  the  face  of  the 
millionaire,  and  his  companion  was  not  too  obtuse  to 
notice  it. 

"  You  must  be  kind  to  poor  Edmund,  Fishy,"  he  said 
humbly. 

"  I  will,  my  boy.  For  some  reason  I  took  to  him  from 
the  start,  I  like  the  bulldog  in  him  ;  he  doesn't  know 
when  he's  beat ;  he's  a  man  after  my  own  heart.  I  began 
life  without  a  rag  to  my  back  ;  he's  finishing  without  one. 
But  we  are  both  of  us  sand.  It  made  me,  and  it  might 
save  him.  Edmund  Broke  cares  for  nothing  and  nobody  ; 
neither  do  I.  Give  me  that  sort,  and  instead  of  licking  my 
boots  they  shall  feed  at  my  table." 

"  You  are  right.  Fishy  ;  the  poor  devil  is  broke,  stoney, 
done  for,  but  he's  sand.     I  love  the  feller  myself." 

"  All  the  same.  Bos,  he  will  have  to  come  to  it,  mind  you. 
He  tears  up  my  cheque  and  throws  it  in  my  face,  just  as 
people  who  are  as  good  as  he  have  done  before  him.     Now 

301 


BROKE    OF    COVENDEN 

they  pick  the  crumbs  out  of  my  hand  like  sparrows. 
Edmund  Broke  will  have  to  do  the  same  one  of  these  line 
mornings.  If  you  saw  the  letters  I  get  from  the  Aristocracy 
— with  a  capital  '  A  ' — from  peeresses  on  the  look  out  for 
pin-money,  and  peers  wanting  pipelights,  it  would  make 
you  laugh.  Take  this  morning:  five  direct  applications 
for  company  tips  from  women  with  titles — not  all  in  the 
beerage  either.  Six  invitations  for  dinner ;  three  for  a 
Saturday-to-Monday  in  the  country  ;  and  as  for  at-homes, 
parties,  God  knows  what,  if  Phoebus  Apollo  came  driving 
down  Piccadilly  in  a  golden  automobile  he  could  not  be 
more  deuced  popular.  And  why  is  it,  do  you  think  ? 
Would  you  say  it  is  for  my  beaux  yeux,  my  boy  ?  Tchah  ! 
Catch  them  kissing  the  hem  of  the  garment  of  a  fat  and 
greasy  and  rather  elderly  Jew  who  does  not  disguise  his 
hereditary  weakness  for  garlic,  if  there  was  not  to  be  a  few 
shekels  at  the  end.  They  want  something.  Bosket,  but 
between  you  and  me.  Bosket,  they  don't  always  get  it. 
I  pick  and  I  choose,  and  as  a  rule  I  give  to  the  deserving 
poor.  And  now  and  again,  if  it  amuses  me,  I  employ  the 
prerogative  of  my  race  and  exact  my  pound  of  flesh.  I 
have  one  or  two  anecdotes  of  my  dealings  with  these  fools 
and  harpies  that  would  make  you  stare.  And  sometimes 
when  I  find  myself  overworked  and  craving  for  relaxation, 
I  grind  some  wretched  devil  with  my  heel." 

"  But  not  poor  Edmund,  Fishy." 

"  No,  my  boy,  you've  got  my  word.  And  I  sometimes 
keep  it.  I  deplore  his  stand-off  ways  for  his  own  sake ;  but 
I  like  them.  He's  a  non-squealer.  I  like  your  man  who  is 
such  devilish  good  form  that  he  chooses  to  be  knocked 
down  and  killed  rather  than  turn  his  stiff  neck  to  see  which 
way  the  traffic's  running.  But  there  is  no  hope  for  that 
man  in  these  days.  He  might  as  well  give  up  the  game  if 
he  doesn't  know  how  to  play  it." 

"  So  I  tell  him.  I  tell  him  that  every  day  of  his  life. 
But,  bless  you,  what  does  he  care  ?  Tell  me,  Fishy,  what 
can  a  feller  do  with  a  feller  who  is  born  eight  hundred  years 
out  of  his  time  ?  " 

"  You  can  watch  him  rot,"  said  Lord  Salmon,  with 
gusto. 

302 


CHAPTER  XXIV 
In  which  Mr.  Burchell  cries  "  Fudge  !  ** 

BROKE,  in  the  stress  of  this  new  turn  to  his  affairs, 
had  recourse  to  that  sage  counsellor,  brilliant  man 
of  business,  and  great  master  of  the  theory  of  commercial 
first  principles,  Mr.  Joseph  Brefiit,  So  rapidly  was  that 
eminent  person  approaching  the  term  of  existence  allotted 
to  man,  and  in  such  a  remarkable  degree  had  fortune 
smiled  upon  his  labours  in  the  many  vineyards  of  the  world 
to  which  his  surprising  talents  had  been  directed,  that  to 
aU  intents  and  purposes  he  had  passed  into  an  elegant 
and  well-merited  retirement  wherein  his  declining  years 
could  seek  asylum.  He  was  now  living  what  euphemisti- 
cally he  liked  to  call  "  the  life  of  a  gentleman  "  in  the  great 
house  in  the  county  he  had  purchased  for  and  placed  at 
the  disposal  of  his  son. 

The  business  he  carried  on  now  was  not  so  exacting,  not 
so  all-absorbing,  as  that  of  his  days  at  Cuttisham.  He  still 
permitted  himself  to  supervise  the  estates  and  in  a  general 
way  to  overlook  the  affairs  of  certain  among  his  clients. 
But  he  had  contrived  to  let  these  favoured  persons  know 
that  there  was  a  measure  of  condescension  in  his  continued 
interest  in  them,  and  that  they  would  do  well  to  lay  the 
unction  to  their  souls  that  it  was  a  delicate  tribute  to  their 
social  standing.  By  these  favourites  of  fortune,  among 
whom  was  our  hero,  needless  to  say,  the  great  man  could 
still  be  consulted  at  those  seasons  when  it  became  impera- 
tive that  they  should  arm  themselves  with  the  accumulated 
stores  of  his  knowledge  and  sagacity.  But  he  liked  even 
these  of  the  elect,  of  the  inner  circle,  to  feel  that  he  was 
something  of  a  potentate  now  ;    that  no  longer  did  he 

303 


BROKE    OF    COVENDEN 

scurry  hither  and  thither  over  the  shire  at  the  beck  of  this 
landowner  and  that ;  and  that  they  could  not  depend  on 
finding  him  at  his  office  at  Cuttisham  so  many  days  in 
the  week,  year  in,  year  out,  between  the  hours  of  ten  and 
four. 

Those  who  now  desired  to  confer  with  Mr.  Joseph  Breffit 
must  seek  audience  in  all  humility  at  his  seat  in  the  county, 
Tufton  Hall,  lately  in  the  occupation  of  Lord  Algernon 
Raynes.  It  was  become  the  theme  of  conversation  among 
his  cUents  that  old  Joe  Breffit  was  a  great  man  now  he  had 
taken  it  into  his  head  to  live  at  poor  Algernon's  place. 
But  however  they  might  laugh  and  look  at  one  another 
meaningly,  and  shrug  their  shoulders,  and  shake  their 
heads  archly,  it  was  not  always  possible  to  do  without  old 
Joe.  A  time  seemed  to  come  to  them  all  when  they  must 
have  his  services  at  any  cost,  "  Old  Joe  is  the  knowingest 
fellow  in  England,  I  dan't  care  where  you  look  for  the 
others,"  was  the  verdict  of  one  blunt  old  squire  ;  and  with 
rather  mournful  unanimity  that  was  allowed  to  be  about 
the  truth. 

To  this  paragon  of  wisdom  and  rectitude  came  Broke 
on  the  morning  following  the  revelations  in  the  matter 
of  the  Thames  Valley  Goldfields  Syndicate.  Grim  and 
bitter  were  the  pangs  of  the  feudal  gentleman  to  reflect 
that  he  should  live  to  see  old  Breffit,  of  all  people  in  the 
world,  installed  here  in  poor  Algernon's  place,  in  the  house 
a  former  duke  of  poor  Algernon's  hne  had  built,  on  a  day 
scarcely  legible  in  the  dim  scroll  of  antiquity.  Our  hero 
had  something  of  the  feelings  of  a  man  of  the  stone  age 
could  he  have  awoke  to  find  himself  in  the  age  of  iron. 
All  the  old  landmarks  and  fingerposts  by  which  one  was 
wont  to  gauge  men  and  things  seemed  to  have  disappeared. 
A  succession  of  Gladstonian  ministries  too  surely  had  told 
their  tale  ! 

There  was  no  end  to  Trade's  ruthless  ravages.  Nothing 
was  sacred  from  it.  The  fair  spots  of  earth  dedicated 
from  immemorial  time  by  usage  and  custom  to  unimpeach- 
able gentlemen  of  feudal  tastes  were  being  filched  away  by 
this  race  of  cunning  capitalists  and  greedy  manufacturers. 
\Miat  would  his  father  have  thought,  the  staunch  and 
foursquare  old  Tory  who  twice  refused  a  peerage  because 

304 


MR.    BURCHELL   CRIES    "FUDGE" 

that  one-time  worthy  institution  had  fallen  into  the  hands 
of  the  middle-classes,  what  would  this  fine  old  Englishman 
have  thought  to  find  motor  cars  superseding  horseflesh, 
and  a  man  of  business,  a  tradesma,.i,  taking  up  his  residence 
at  Tufton  Hall  ! 

When  our  hero  found  himself  on  the  terrace  under  the 
shadows  of  a  gloomy  fagade  that  had  obtained  for  the 
place  its  reputation  as  one  of  the  show  houses  of  England, 
he  felt  himself  shiver  in  the  involuntary  manner  which  in 
the  popular  mind  is  held  to  portend  that  someone  is 
engaged  in  walking  across  your  grave.  The  fate  of  this 
sombre  pile  struck  home.  His  own  decay  was  projected 
across  his  imagination  in  the  form  of  a  sinister  parallel. 
Vividly  it  foreshadowed  the  day  when  Covenden  itself, 
the  home  of  an  elder  race  than  even  that  of  Raynes,  should 
fall  a  victim  to  Commerce,  that  insatiate  monster  with  the 
all-devouring  maw.  "  Upon  my  word  !  "  mused  our  hero, 
"  it  is  sacrilege  for  old  Breffit  to  set  his  foot  here.  We  have 
'Arrys  in  the  hunting  field ;  tradesmen  at  the  covert-side  ; 
now  we  have  come  to  this." 

A  splendid  gentleman,  faultless  in  pose  and  appointment, 
conducted  our  hero  across  the  tiled  hall,  embellished  above 
with  a  gallery  and  a  priceless  ceiling  ;  and  below  with 
rescued  tapestries  from  Spain,  Louis  Quinze  furniture, 
every  piece  of  which  was  believed  to  have  enjoyed  the 
sanction  of  La  Pompadour  ;  while  round  the  walls  were 
a  particularly  comprehensive  set  of  ancestral  portraits 
from  Holbein  to  W^atts,  with  Vandycks  and  an  occasional 
Lely,  KneUer,  Rejmolds,  Gainsborough  and  Raebum  by 
the  way. 

The  proprietor  of  these  objects  was  discovered  in  a 
spacious  apartment  on  the  ground  floor.  His  nether  man 
was  clothed  in  a  bran-new  pair  of  riding  breeches  by  a 
specialist  of  Savile  Row,  but  being  discovered  in  a  moment 
of  elegant  undress  or  neglige,  other  details  of  his  attire 
were  pitched  hardly  in  the  same  key.  For  the  sake  of 
ease  he  had  not  donned  either  boots  or  leggings  at  this 
early  hour.  Therefore,  the  parts  they  conceal  were  exposed 
to  view  in  three  sections,  consisting  in  v/hite  pants,  red 
socks,  and  carpet  slippers  with  cunning  beaded  work  upon 
the  top.    The  white  choker  tie  was  virgin  in  its  purity,  but 

305  u 


BROKE    OF    COVENDEN 

not  so  the  shirt  and  collar  ;  the  Tattersall  waistcoat  was 
a  thing  of  beauty,  but  a  spot  of  grease  in  the  centre  hardly 
came  within  its  wonderful  and  fearful  scheme  of  colour, 
although,  Uke  a  middle  tint  in  an  impressionist  landscape, 
the  higher  criticism  might  have  pronounced  it  to  be  an 
embelhshment.  As  a  set-off  to  all  these  superlative  things 
was  a  chin  that  had  not  very  recently  known  the  razor, 
while  a  ragged  smoking  jacket  stained  and  discoloured 
all  hues  save  the  original  of  twenty  years  before,  gave  the 
predominant  note  to  an  appearance  which  struck  our  hero 
as  a  little  bizarre. 

On  a  table,  at  which  Mr.  Brefiit  was  seated,  lay  a  sheet  of 
notepaper  with  a  row  of  names  in  pencil  thereupon  ;  and 
beside  it  an  open  book,  over  which,  eye-glasses  on  nose,  he 
had  been  poring  assiduously.  It  was  a  volume  of  Sir 
Horatio  Hare's  fascinating  if  slightly  cumbersome  work, 
The  Peerage,  Baronetage,  Knightage,  and  Landed  Gentry. 

"  Ha,  Mr.  Broke,"  he  said,  holding  out  his  hand  without 
rising  from  his  chair,  "  delighted  to  see  you.  Will  you  take 
something  to  drink  ?  Say  a  glass  of  wine  now,  say  a  glass 
of  wine." 

Our  hero  accepted  the  hand  and  declined  the  wine 
without  any  display  of  effusion.  Mr.  Breffit  was  frankly 
disappointed. 

"  Say  a  drop  of  port  now.  WTiat  do  you  say  to  a  drop 
of  port  ?  I've  got  some  I  can  recommend.  Forty-seven. 
That  ought  to  be  good  enough  even  for  you,  Mr.  Broke,  eh  ? 
The  old  Duke,  Lord  Algernon's  father,  laid  it  down,  but 
I  take  it  up,  ha  !  ha  !  Come  now,  just  one  glass  for  the 
sake  of  old  times,  sir." 

Our  hero  declined  this  offer  also  with  the  same  absence 
of  effusion. 

"  Well,  well,"  said  Mr.  Brefht  with  a  sigh,  "  I  suppose 
you  know  best,  Mr.  Broke.  It  doesn't  agree  with  every- 
body in  the  morning  before  dinner — I  mean  lunch.  It 
doesn't  with  me.  But  if  you  will  you  have  only  to  say, 
you  know.  Or  do  you  prefer  champagne,  sir  ?  Speak, 
if  you  do  ;  there  is  plenty  in  the  same  place  as  the  port. 
I've  got  a  nice  dry  wine  you  need  not  be  afraid  of.  In 
fact,  Mr.  Broke,  if  it  comes  to  that,  I  have  got  about  the 
best  cellar  in  the  county.     His    lordship    and  his  father 

006 


MR.    BURCHELL   CRIES    "FUDGE" 

before  him  knew  a  few  things  about  wine,  I  can  tell  you. 
Come,  now,  Mr.  Broke,  just  a  leetle  drop  of  '  boy '  for  old 

sake's  sake." 

Our  hero  remained  equally  impervious  to  the  blandish- 
ments of  champagne.  Pointedly,  briefly,  he  stated  the 
business  that  was  responsible  for  his  presence.  But  this 
morning  it  seemed  a  really  difhcult  matter  to  keep  old 
Brefht  down  to  the  prosaic.  It  almost  seemed  as  if  the 
old  fellow  was  a  little  flushed  by  the  position  in  which  he 
found  himself,  as  if  he  had  been  knocked  off  his  balance 
a  bit  by  his  new  surroundings.  For  the  first  time  in  our 
hero's  long  experience  of  his  ways  he  discerned  a  retrograde 
tendency,  a  tendency  to  insist  on  his  own  immediate  per- 
sonal affairs.  There  was  even  a  disposition  in  him  to  forget 
the  subtle  degree  of  homage  that  was  wont  to  oil  the 
wheels,  as  it  were,  of  their  intercourse.  It  was  not  always 
so  subtle  either  for  that  matter  ;  there  had  been  times  when 
old  Breffit's  flummery  had  got  on  our  hero's  nerves  a  little. 
He  had  overlooked  that,  however.  Old  Brefiit  had  always 
been  a  well-meaning  man,  eminently  well  meaning.  But 
the  suggestion  of  familiarity,  of  off-handedness  that  was  in 
him  this  morning,  jarred  on  his  pontifical  nerves  even 
more.  Your  devoutly  religious  nature  may  occasionally 
deplore  the  presence  of  too  much  incense,  but  too  little 
cuts  it  to  the  heart. 

"  What  do  you  think  of  my  little  place  ?  "  said  Mr. 
Brefht,  as  soon  as  Broke  had  furnished  his  succinct  account 
of  the  Thames  Valley  Goldfields  Syndicate  disaster.  "  Not 
a  bad  place  is  it,  sir  ?  " 

Our  hero  was  not  able  to  exhibit  any  particular  enthu- 
siasm for  the  little  place.  The  pride  of  ownership  which 
swelled  the  voice  of  Mr.  Brefiit  merely  caused  him  to  cock 
his  eye  at  that  gentleman,  and  to  stroke  his  chin  in  deep 
thought. 

"  There  is  everything  here,  you  know,"  said  the  new 
owner,  waxing  on  his  theme.  "  It  would  surprise  you,  it 
would  indeed,  to  see  the  number  of  people  who  come  'ere 
from  all  parts  of  the  world,  and  from  America  especially, 
to  look  at  what  we've  got.  We  set  certain  days  apart  you 
know,  on  which  to  throw  the 'ouse  and  grounds  open  to  the 
public.     It  is  very  inconvenient,  you  know,  sir,  sometimes 

307 


BROKE    OF    COVENDEN 

1o  be  mistaken  for  the  butler,  and  now  and  then  to  get  a 
tip  ;  or  when  you  are  sitting  at  dinner — I  mean  lunch — to 
see  them  pressing  their  noses  against  the  windows:  it 
gives  you  a  kind  of  feeling  that  they  'ave  come  to  watch 
the  lions  feed.  But,  after  all,  these  are  a  part  of  our  responsi- 
bilities. Noblesse  oblige — I  daresay  you  'ave  felt  the  same 
thing  yourself." 

"  Humph  !  "  said  our  hero. 

"  I  suppose  it  is  only  right.  We  ought  not  to  be  selfish 
in  these  matters.  We  ought  to  do  what  we  can  to  elevate 
the  masses.  If  it  educates  them  and  gives  them  'igher 
thoughts  to  look  at  old  oil  paintings,  I  am  not  the  one  to 
say  them  nay,  '  Let  them  all  come '  is  my  motto.  But  I 
feel  a  great  responsibility,  Mr.  Broke,  all  the  same.  You 
see,  Lord  Algernon  was — you  will,  ahem  !  pardon  my  frank- 
ness, but  it  has  always  been  my  rule  to  speak  out — Lord 
Algernon  was  not  at  all  particular.  He  'ung  up  pictures 
of  nude  figures  of  both  sexes." 

"  Humph  !  "  said  our  hero. 

"  They  tell  me  one  of  the  ceilings  is  by  Marie  Corelli — 
the  one  with  the  little  flying  angels  on  it.  Very  pure  and 
*igh-minded  I  call  it,  considering  the  subject — '  Beauty 
in  Distress  ' — and  '  Beauty  '  is  so  nicely  dressed  that  it 
ought  to  be  a  fine  moral  lesson  to  some  other  artists  I 
could  name.  I  call  that  ceiling  'armless,  sir.  Very  moral 
and  elevating.  But,  personally,  the  landscapes  appeal  to 
me  most.  There's  a  genuine  Claude  Duval.  And  that 
little  thing  in  a  gilt  frame  on  the  right  hand  as  you 
come  in  is  supposed  to  be  a  genuine  Theodore  Watts 
Dunton.  Said  to  be  very  convincing  and  of  rare  distinc- 
tion." 

"  Humph  !  "  said  our  hero. 

"  Then,  sir,  the  furniture  is  worthy  of  your  attention. 
There  is  a  Chippendale  cabinet,  and  a  Sheridan  sideboard 
with  poker  work  inlaid ;  the  chairs  are  mostly  Paul 
Very-uneasy  and  Lewis  Carroll.  The  piano  in  the  blue 
drawing-room  is  an  upright  Stradivarius  on  which 
Ole  Bull  had  the  honour  of  playing  '  'Ome,  Sweet  'Ome  ' 
before  her  Majesty  at  Cowes." 

"  Humph  !  "  said  our  hero. 

"  The  grounds  are  worthy  of  attention,  too.  There  are 
308 


MR.    BURCHELL    CRIES    "FUDGE" 

several  trees  planted  by  the  late  Prince  Consort,  also 
one  or  two  cut  down  by  the  late  Mr.  Gladstone." 

"  Humph  !  "  said  our  hero. 

"  There  are  all  things  and  everything.  In  the  cabinet 
in  the  yellow  room  among  the  curios  there  is  the 
air-cushion  that  was  kept  for  the  Prince  Regent  to 
sit  on  when  he  had  the  gout.  There  is  the  identical 
penny  doll  the  Prince  of  Wales  wore  in  his  hat  when  he 
went  to  the  Derby  in  '67.  There  is  Queen  Anne's  favourite 
snuffbox ;  and  a  strip  of  the  shift  that  Mother  Brownrigg 
was  executed  in.  There  are  the  shoes  of  a  Derby  winner 
bred  and  owned  by  Lord  Algernon's  father  ;  and  the 
pantaloons  worn  by  old  Q.  and  Lord  George  Bentinck  on 
the  memorable  day.  In  fact,  Mr.  Broke,  there  are  a 
thousand  and  one  things  too  numerous  to  refer  to.  I 
shall  be  very  happy,  sir,  personally  to  take  you  on  a  tour 
of  the  house  and  grounds  like  I  do  parties  of  excursionists.". 

"  Humph  !  "  said  our  hero. 

"  But,  you  know,  Mr.  Broke" — Mr.  Breffit's  excited  voice 
suddenly  grew  pregnant  with  mystery — "  I  have  always 
maintained  it  is  not  manners  that  maketh  man  so  much 
as  his  surroundings.  To-morrow  we  start  our  entertaining. 
There  is  a  lot  of  real  swells  coming  here,  friends  of  my  son's. 
They  would  never  have  thought  of  coming  to  my  pokey 
hole  and  corner  little  house  at  Cuttisham,  but  here,  sir, 
you  see  it's  different.  They  are  all  real  slap-up  people, 
every  one,  sir.  You  would  not  be  ashamed  to  meet  them 
yourself.  I  wish  you  would  name  a  day  on  which  you  could 
come  over  and  dine  with  us.  And  we  could  find  you  a 
bed ;  no  end  of  room,  you  know.  I  have  just  been  looking 
out  who  these  friends  of  his  are.  All  their  names  are 
in  Hare  right  enough,  so  they  are  perfectly  safe." 

"  Humph  !  "  said  our  hero. 

"  Every  one  of  their  fathers  is  in  Hare.  And  there  is 
not  one  lower  in  rank  than  a  baronet,  and  he  is  all  right. 
because  he  is  a  second  cousin  to  the  author.  But,  of 
course,  you  and  I,  Mr.  Broke,  understand  the  real  value 
of  having  a  handle  to  one's  name.  It  is  not  worth  anything, 
strictly  speaking,  but  the  world  has  yet  to  find  that  out ; 
and  when  all  is  said,  it  does  give  you  a  feeling  of  security 
that  whatever  they  may  say  or  whatever  they  may  do 

309 


BROKE    OF    COVENDEN 

has  tlie  sanction,  as  it  were,  of  their  social  position.  I 
think  it  is  good  for  my  son  to  choose  his  acquaintances 
from  among  the  'ighest  in  the  land.  A  man  is  known  by 
the  company  he  keeps.  I  am  thankful  to  say,  my  son  has 
early  found  out  for  himself  the  great,  the  inmiense  value 
of  that  adage." 

"  Humph  !  "  said  our  hero. 

"  You  might  say  that  we  have  got  coming  to-morrow 
the  creme  de  la  creme,  the  real  Vere  de  Vere  as  it  were. 
There  is  young  Woole-Sacke,  the  eldest  son  of  the  Earl  of 
Tre,  Pol,  and  Pen,  who  was  ennobled  for  the  humane 
consideration  he  extended  to  all  wrong-doers,  no  matter 
how  well-connected  they  might  be,  that  were  brought 
before  'im.  That  is  a  fine  example  of  pecuniary  reward 
overtaking  a  humane  and  high-minded  judge,  who  never 
allowed  wealth  and  station  to  interfere  with  his  unfailing 
courtesy.  That  is  a  great  thing  about  England  :  politeness 
costs  nothing,  but  it  may  mean  a  great  deal.  There  is 
also  the  eldest  son  of  the  Earl  of  Beeston.  His  father  was 
ennobled  for  building  a  coffee  'ouse  in  which  a  royal 
princess  drank  the  first  mug.  He  moves  in  the  selectest 
society  in  London.  Member  of  the  Royal  Yacht  Squadron 
and  the  Jockey  Club,  and  all  that,  you  know,  and  his  name 
has  appeared  in  all  the  most  important  card  scandals  of 
the  last  ten  years.  There  is  no  doubt  about  'im.  Then 
there  is  young  Lord  Treadwell,  son  of  the  Marquis  of 
Kidderminster — carpets,  you  know.  His  father  is  a  true 
philanthropist,  and  a  great  friend  of  royalty.  It  is  not 
often  his  name  is  out  of  the  papers.  There  is  no  doubt 
about  him  either.  In  fact,  there  is  no  doubt  about  any 
of  them.  Their  social  position,  sir,  is  unassailable.  Don't 
you  think,  Mr.  Broke,  that  my  son  'as  made  the  most  of 
his  time  to  collect  and  bring  together  such  a  very  desirable 
set  of  young  men  ?  " 

"  Humph  !  "  said  our  hero. 

At  this  point  the  proud  father  stopped.  His  volubility, 
touched  with  an  intense  excitement  which  had  provoked 
a  few  liberties  with  our  common  tongue,  came  suddenly 
to  an  end  just  as  our  hero  had  been  driven  by  despair  to 
the  conclusion  that  it  was  never  going  to  end  at  all.  Mr. 
Breffit  was  seen  to  pull  himself  up  by  a  violent  effort.     He 

qio 


MR.    BURCHELL   CRIES    "FUDGE" 

coughed  in  an  uneasy  fashion,  and  began  to  wriggle  in  his 
chair  without  any  visible  cause  for  such  a  proceeding.  Our 
hero  regarded  him  with  a  stolid  gravity.  Now  he  was 
here  he  would  hear  the  fellow  out  to  the  bitter  end  !  After 
all,  it  threw  an  illuminating  flashlight  on  the  purlieus  of 
human  nature.  One  hardly  realized  into  what  fantastic 
shapes  the  aspirations  and  emotions  that  almost  might 
be  said  to  be  common  to  us  all  could  be  twisted  by  un- 
educated minds.  Breffit's  rather  astounding  revelation 
of  himself  was  not  without  value.  It  would  be  instructive 
to  hear  the  fellow  out. 

"  You  must  pardon  me,  Mr.  Broke,"  said  the  old  man, 
beginning  again  in  a  voice  that  had  now  dropped  to  a  hoarse 
whisper,  "  but  I  think  the  time  is  now  come  when,  without 
impropriety,  I  can  speak  on  a  subject  that  has  been  in 
my  mind  for  some  little  time  past.  Of  course,  sir,  speaking 
as  one  man  of  the  world  to  another,  you  will  understand 
almost  without  my  calling  attention  to  the  fact,  that  in 
these  days  every  tub  is  allowed  to  stand  on  its  own  bottom, 
as  it  were,  and  that  it  is  every  man  for  himself." 

"  Humph  !  "  said  our  hero. 

He  did  not  try  to  elucidate  this  piece  of  pregnant  reason- 
ing. 

"  I  don't  think  I  have  quite  shown  you  what  I  mean, 
sir.  What  I  want  you  to  understand,  Mr.  Broke,  is  this  : 
when  a  man  gets  to  my  time  of  life,  and  that  life  has  been 
as  successful  as  mine  has  been — I  think  I  may  make  that 
admission  to  you,  sir,  without  being  considered  boastful — 
he  may  begin  to  see  things  in  a  different  light  to  that  in 
which  he  was  inclined  to  look  at  them  when  he  was  younger 
and  not  quite  so  well  to  do.  You  will  understand  that,  sir, 
will  you  not  ?  " 

"  Humph  !  "  said  our  hero. 

"  You  see,  there  is  that  son  of  mine,  sir.  He  has  had 
the  best  upbringing  that  a  young  man  can  'ave  ;  he  mixes 
with  the  best  people  ;  he  enjoys  all  the  advantages  of 
wealth  ;  not  to  mention  the  minor  blessings  of  'ealth  and 
a  sound  constitution.  And  it  has  become  a  pet  scheme 
of  mine,  Mr.  Broke,  my  one  remaining  ambition,  you  might 
say,  that  before  I  die  I  shall  see  this  boy  of  mine  settled 
in  life  with  a  wife  whose  antecedents  are  unimpeachable 

311 


BROKE    OF    COVENDEN 

and — er — to  be  quite  frank  with  you,  sir,  who  is  capable 
of  giving  him  a  hft  in  a  social  sense.  It  may  seem  a  wild 
scheme  to  you,  Mr.  Broke,  but  before  I  go  I  should  like 
to  see  my  son  in — er — a  fair  way  to — er — found  a  family." 

"  Humph  !  "  said  our  hero. 

The  old  man  was  exceeding  all  expectation, 

"  It  may  sound  a  bit  inflated  and  presumptuous  to  you, 
Mr.  Broke,  I  know ;  but  you  must  not  forget  that  every- 
body 'as  to  'ave  a  beginning.  If  I  may  say  it  without 
giving  offence,  sir,  even  the  family  of  Broke  'ad  to  'ave 
a  beginning.  And  what  I  ask  myself  is  this  :  why  should 
not  I,  old  Joe  Brefiit,  now  that  I  'ave  the  ways  and  the 
means,  all  come  by  honestly,  mind  you,  and  in  the  sweat 
of  my  brow  as  it  were,  why  should  not  I  begin  like  anybody 
else  ?  When  some  of  the  fathers  and  the  grandfathers 
of  the  young  men  who  are  coming  to-morrow  began  life, 
sir,  they  were  'ardly  better  than  I  am  myself.  But  look 
at  them  now.  They  are  the  creme  de  la  crime,  the  real 
Vere  de  Vere.  And  I  'ave  lately  come  to  ask  myself  why, 
in  the  course  of  time  and  the  fulness,  the  name  of  Breffit 
should  not  rank  as  'igh  as  does  theirs  to-day  ?  " 

"  Humph  !  "  said  our  hero. 

"  Those  are  my  feelings  on  the  subject,  Mr.  Broke.  And 
I  'ope  you  will  be  patient  with  me,  and  not  think  I  am 
trespassing — trespassing  unduly  upon  your  valuable  time, 
because  upon  consideration  I  have  come  to  the  conclusion 
that  you,  sir,  are  the  man  before  all  others  who  is  in  a 
position  to  'elp  me." 

"  Humph  !  "  said  our  hero. 

Our  surprised  but  not  flattered  gentleman  knitted  his 
brows  into  a  pattern  of  fierce  perplexity. 

"  I  beg  jour  pardon,  Brefiit,  but  I  am  afraid  I  don't 
understand  what  you  are  driving  at." 

"  No,  sir,  I  thought  you  might  not.  I  will  try  to  make 
myself  a  Httle  more  clear.  You  see,  it  is  like  this,  Mr. 
Broke — I  hope  you  will  not  think  I  am  exceeding  the 
bounds  of  good  taste  to  mention  a  small  matter  of  this 
kind — but,  speaking  as  one  business  man  to  another,  are 
you  aware  that  a  few  months  ago  Mrs.  Broke  did  me  the 
honour  to  accept  a  loan  of  me  to  the  extent  of  some  two 
thousand  pounds  ?     The  matter  is  almost  too  trivial  to 

312 


MR.    BURCHELL   CRIES    "FUDGE" 

mention.  It  was  just  in  the  ordinary  way  of  business, 
you  know  ;  she  wanted  it,  I  beheve,  for  some  Httle  private 
speculation,  which  I  am  sorry  to  say  did  not  come  off. 
In  any  case,  she  borrowed  it,  sir ;  and  as  she  has  since 
told  me  that  there  is  no  immediate  prospect  of  her  being 
able  to  repay  it,  I  feel,  with  great  diffidence,  you  will  under- 
stand, sir,-  that  I  may  be  pardoned  if  I  turn  to  you  for  a 
helping  hand  in  this  little  matter  that  is  so  near  my  heart. 
Wheels  within  wheels,  you  know,  sir,  as  the  saying  is." 

Our  hero  said  "humph"  no  more.  His  eyes  dilated, 
his  face  assumed  the  startled  expression  which  several 
times  had  appeared  on  it  of  late ;  every  Une  in  his  figure 
denoted  alarm. 

"  Impossible.  She  would  not  be  such  a  fool.  She — ah 
— would  not  dare." 

Mr.  Breffit  smiled  a  far-off  smile  within  himself. 

"  There  is  my  cheque  book.  I  can  easily  produce  it; 
sir,  if  you  wish  to  see  it." 

Our  hero  waved  his  hand  petulantly.  But  half  a  groan 
escaped  him.  His  unbelief  was  not  so  much  a  matter  of 
incredulity  as  of  disinclination. 

"  What — ah — do  you — ah — propose  to  do  ?  " 

"  I  propose  to  do  nothing,  sir,  of  course.  But  if  I  may, 
I  would  hke  to  make  a  suggestion.  The  scheme  I  would 
like  to  be  allowed  to  propound  would,  I  am  sure,  be  to 
our  common  advantage.  But  first,  sir,  I  must  have  your 
permission  to  speak  out  just  what  is  in  my  mind." 

"  You  have  it,"  said  our  hero  shortly. 

"  You  will  undertake  not  to  be — er — offended  by  it, 
sir?" 

"  Of  course." 

Our  hero  gave  a  grim  eye  to  his  agent.  For  the  first 
time  the  idea  dawned  upon  him,  in  all  its  completeness, 
as  to'  what  a  cunning  fellow  this  old  Breffit  really  was. 
The  supple  and  servile  adviser  of  twenty  years,  in  many 
ways  the  friend,  was  now  about  to  issue  forth  in  his  native 
character  of  the  Jew-like  usurer.  He  could  afford  to  snap 
his  fingers  in  his  face  now,  he  the  man  of  wealth,  to  the 
client  brought  to  beggary.  He  was  about  to  grind  him, 
no  doubt. 

"  Well,  sir,  what  I  'ave  in  my  mind  is  this,"  said  the  old 

313 


BROKE    OF    COVENDEN 

man  with  the  same  circumlocution,  the  same  odd  nervous- 
ness of  manner  that  our  hero  had  remarked  in  him  from 
the  beginning  of  the  interview.  "  Blood  without  money 
don't  count  for  much  nowadays,  does  it,  sir  ?  And  money 
Mkes  to  'ave  blood  to  back  it  when  it  can  get  it,  does  it 
not,  sir  ?  Now,  why  should  not  you  and  I,  who  I  might 
say  are  typical  of  the  two  sides,  if  you  will  pardon  the 
freedom,  enter  into  a  little  arrangement  for  our  mutual 
benefit  ?  " 

"  Why  not  ?  "  said  Broke  the  obtuse. 

"  I  am  glad  to  'ear  you  say  that,  sir,  I  am  indeed !  " 
said  Mr.  Brefht,  with  a  fervent  air  of  relief  and  thankful- 
ness.    "  I  felt  sure,  sir,  you  would  see  it  in  that  light." 

"  What  is  your  little  arrangement,  Brefl&t  ?  " 

"  Well — er — you  see,  sir,  I — er — want  a  wife  for  my 
son. 

"  In  the  circumstances  that  does  not  strike  one  as 
unnatural." 

"  I  want  you  to  'elp  me,  Mr.  Broke." 

"  I — ah — have  no  qualifications  as  far  as  I  am  aware  to 
be  a  matrimonial  agent." 

"  You  have  daughters,  sir." 

"Six." 

They  looked  at  one  another.  Broke  looked  at  Breffit 
with  the  candour  and  self-possession  of  perfect  innocence. 
For  the  life  of  him  he  could  not  see  what  the  fellow  was 
driving  at !  Breffit  looked  at  Broke  with  a  weary,  anxious 
expression.  Delicate  suggestion  could  no  farther  go. 
The  hint  was  as  broad,  as  direct  as  any  hint  could  be,  yet 
the  great  man  either  would  not  or  could  not  see  it. 

For  once  even  Mr.  Breffit  was  at  a  disadvantage.  He 
had  an  uneasy  consciousness  that  this  matter  was  a  little 
outside  his  milieu.  He  did  not  know  quite  what  to  say 
next.  A  transaction  in  shares,  the  recovery  of  a  debt, 
the  terms  of  a  tenancy,  and  he  was  prepared  to  revel  in 
the  facilit}'  and  the  felicity  of  his  language.  But  those  gifts 
of  expression  did  not  lielp  him  here.  He  must  be  delicate; 
yet  the  man  was  as  dense  as  a  wall. 

"  Don't  you  take  me,  sir  ?  "  he  said  at  last  in  despera- 
tion, shutting  one  eye  like  a  character  in  Dickens. 

"  I  beg  your  pardon,  Breffit,"  said  our  hero  gravely. 
3M 


MR.    BURCHELL   CRIES    "FUDGE" 

"  Don't  you  understand  me,  sir  ?  " 

"  I  beg  your  pardon,"  our  hero  repeated  more  gravely 
than  before. 

Mr.  Brefiit  was  mortified.  Had  the  man  no  intelligence 
at  all  !  Surely  it  was  not  necessary  to  say  in  so  many 
words  just  what  was  in  one's  mind.  Between  cultivafed 
people  it  was  hardly  usual  to  resort  to  such  an  extreme 
verbal  precision  in  affairs  of  this  peculiarly  delicate  kind. 
It  was  his  first  experience  of  them,  it  was  true,  but  his 
instincts  assured  him  that  a  margin  for  insinuation,  for 
suggestion,  ought  to  be  allowed. 

"  You  have  daughters,  sir." 

"  Six." 

"  And  I  have  a  son,  sir." 

"  So  I  understand." 

"  Well,  now,  sir,  do  you  not — er — exactly  see — er — 
what  I  mean  ?  " 

Mr.  Breffit  in  his  anxiety  leaned  forward  with  his  hands 
on  his  knees. 

"  Just  now  you  spoke  of  a  scheme,"  said  our  hero 
patiently. 

"  That  is  my  scheme,  sir,"  said  Mr.  Breffit  in  a  burst  of 
confidence. 

"  You  speak  in  riddles.  I — ah — cannot  make  you  out. 
I  do  not  see  what  your  son  has  got  to  do  with  it.  Do 
you — ah — wish  me  to  understand  that  Mrs.  Broke  bor- 
rowed this  money  of  him.  If  that  is  the  case,  why — ah — 
not  say  so  in  as  many  words  ?  " 

Mr,  Breffit  ran  his  fingers  through  his  sparse  hair.  How 
was  it  possible  to  be  delicate  with  a  man  of  this  kidney  ! 

"  It  is  not  a  question  of  the  money,  sir,  altogether." 

"  If  it  is  not  a  question  of  the  money,  I  hardly  know 
what  you  are  talking  about,  Breffit,"  said  Broke,  becoming 
so  bewildered  that  he  was  getting  a  httle  angry  also.  "  Of 
course,  you  may  depend  upon  it  that  I  shall  take  the 
first  opportunity  of — ah — discharging  the — ah — obhgation 
Mrs.  Broke  is  under  to  you.  I  hope  there  will  be  enough 
left  over  from  the  lease  of  No.  3,  Broke  Street,  to  clear  off 
that.  In  the  course  of  a  week  or  two,  Breffit,  I — ah — trust 
you  will  be  repaid." 

"  Of  course,  sir — yes,  yes,  of  course.     But — er — that  is 

315 


BROKE    OF    COVENDEN 

not  exactly  what  I  mean.  Really — er — that  has  little  or 
nothing  to  do  with  it." 

"  Breffit,  I  cannot  understand  you.  What  else  have 
we  been  talking  about  ?  I  certainly  understood  you  to 
be  propounding  a  scheme  by  which  I — ah — could  pay  off 
the  debt  in  a  manner  convenient  to  us  both.  You  have 
not  made  it  very  clear,  but — ah — I  don't  doubt  it  is 
excellent.  Your  schemes  in  the  way  of  business  are 
generally  excellent." 

"  They  are,  I  hope  and  trust,  sir.  But  if  you  will  pardon 
my  sa5nng  it,  sir,  I  think  you  have  got  hold  of  the  wrong 
end  of  the  stick.  It  is  not  a  paltry  little  matter  of  a  few 
hundreds  of  pounds  that  I  am  talking  of,  in  the  first  place. 
We  will  leave  that  out  of  the  question  altogether.  You 
have  six  daughters,  and — er — I  have  one  son,  sir  ;  and  my 
son,  sir,  speaking  plainly,  is  pretty  well  off  at  the  present 
moment,  and  has  this  place  in  which  to  Uve.  In  confi- 
dence, Mr.  Broke,  I  think  it  is  only  right  to  tell  you  that  I 
have  made  over  this  house  to  him  in  my  own  lifetime,  and 
fastened  rather  more  than  a  quarter  of  a  million  upon  him 
for  the  upkeep  of  it.  And  I  may  say  that  at  my  decease 
there  will  be  another  quarter  of  a  million  for  him  in 
addition,  or  even  more  ;  but  what  he  has  already  should 
be  more  than  enough  for  him  to  marry  on  and  lead  the  Hfe 
of  a  gentleman.  According  to  its  present  investments 
it  means  something  like  thirty  thousand  a  year,  sir; 
and  should  his  wife  object  to  my  presence  in  this  house, 
I  being  a  simple  and  homely  man,  sir,  and  always  have 
been,  like  my  father  before  me,  I  am  quite  prepared  to  go 
back  to  the  little  hole  at  Cuttisham  above  my  office,  where 
I  have  lived  for  forty  years." 

In  an  impatience  of  spirit  that  was  no  longer  to  be 
restrained  Broke  rose  from  his  chair.  Old  Breffit  was  so 
persistently  mysterious,  so  persistently  unintelligible,  that 
one  would  almost  think  his  mind  was  giving  way.  He 
was  certainly  bcj^inning  to  evince  many  signs  of  age. 
This  was  not  the  Breffit  of  Cuttisham  he  was  wont  to  look 
to.  This  was  not  the  far-seeing  and  acute  man  of  business 
who,  confining  himself  wholly  to  the  affairs  of  his  chents; 
had  the  knack  of  setting  forth  his  thoughts  in  the  most 
explicit  manner.     This  was  a  new  kind  of  Breffit  alto- 

316 


MR.    BURCHELL   CRIES    "FUDGE" 

gether :  a  halting,  faltering,  fumbling,  prosing,  nervously- 
autobiographical  Breffit ;  an  uneasy,  aspiring,  great- deal- 
too-familiar  Brefi&t  who  gave  himself  airs.  There,  could 
be  no  doubt  that  the  acquisition  of  wealth  was  a  curse  to 
people  who  had  not  been  bred  to  its  enjoyment. 

He  could  endure  this  farce  no  longer.  He  took  up  his 
hat  and  tapped  his  riding  crop  against  his  gaiters. 

"  Good  morning,  Breffit." 

Mr.  Breffit  lifted  his  sweating  face  up  to  him  in  the 
stress  of  a  last  appeal. 

"  Surely,  sir,  you  do  understand  me  ?  " 

"  Confound  it  all,  my  dear  fellow,  what  is  there  to 
understand  ?  " 

"  That  I  want  my  son  to  marry  one  of  your  daughters 
— I  don't  care  which,"  Mr.  Breffit  blurted  out  with  the 
sudden  and  dramatic  brevity  of  his  great  desperation. 

Our  hero  stood  a  minute  in  deep  silence,  but  with  his 
mouth  open  wide  and  a  face  as  purple  as  Mr.  Breffit's  own. 
Suddenly,  and  still  without  uttering  a  word,  he  crammed 
his  hat  on  his  head,  swung  upon  his  heel,  and  stalked  out 
of  the  house  at  such  a  pace  that  he  ran  the  imminent  risk 
of  knocking  down  a  serious  and  splendid  gentleman  in  the 
shape  of  a  footman  and  trampling  him  beneath  his  feet. 


317 


CHAPTER  XXV 
Iphigenia 

BROKE  rode  two  miles  at  a  brisk  canter.  He  th*?!! 
for  no  visible  reason  reined  up  his  horse,  and  burst 
out  in  a  guffaw  of  laughter.  The  quahty  of  this  mirth 
was  as  singular  as  its  manner.  It  had  the  hoUowness 
of  that  a  ghost  might  shake  out  of  its  thin  sides,  if  con- 
fronted with  its  own  reflection  in  a  mirror  in  the  middle 
of  the  night.  There  was  no  precise  reason  why  at  such  a 
moment  he  should  pause  for  amusement's  sake,  let  alone 
to  make  it  vocal  ;  and  the  absence  of  motive  lent  a  slightly 
irrelevant,  a  slightly  ridiculous  air  to  the  proceeding.  When 
he  rode  on  again  he  appeared  to  be  laughing  at  his  own 
incongruous  behaviour. 

It  was  not  until  the  evening  of  that  day  that  he  could 
screw  up  his  resolution  to  the  point  of  talking  with  his  wife 
on  the  painful  topic  of  her  borrowing  two  thousand 
pounds  from  Mr.  Breffit.  The  other  consequences — the 
outcome,  he  supposed,  of  that  rash  act — he  could  not  put 
before  himself.  Events  had  been  moving  too  fast  for  him 
lately.  His  powerfully  balanced  and  beautifully  unemo- 
tional mental  system  was  in  danger  of  being  shaken  to  its 
base  if  this  sort  of  thing  continued  to  go  on.  There  was 
only  a  numb  ache  in  that  sensitive  portion  of  him  which 
rejoiced  a  fortnight  ago  in  the  possession  of  a  living  breath- 
ing actual  son;  Then  a  great  green  discoloration,  a  very 
bruise,  was  spreading  over  the  no  less  sensitive  part  that  was 
dedicated  to  his  sovereign  honesty.  That  Salmon  business 
was  a  facer ;  but  worse  a  hundred  times,  because  of  the  hint 
of  treachery  implied  in  it,  was  this  business  of  his  wife 

3i« 


IPHIGENIA 

stooping  to  borrow  money  behind  his  back,  with  but  a  faint 
possibility  of  repaying  it.  As  for  the  use  old  Breffit  had  pro- 
posed to  himself  to  put  it  to,  that  was  not  a  theme  for 
serious  minds.  It  belonged  too  palpably  to  the  region  of 
broad  farce. 

He  was  shocked  by  a  suspicion  of  hghtness  in  his  wife's 
tone  when  with  many  hums  and  haws  he  confronted  her 
with  her  misdemeanour.  The  borrowing  of  the  two 
thousand  pounds  she  admitted  in  as  many  words.  She 
had  seen  what  she  thought  to  be  a  chance  of  snapping 
up  an  unconsidered  trifle  by  means  of  speculation  with  a 
few  shares.  It  had  not  come  off  ;  and  there  the  thing  was — 
such  was  her  habit  of  philosophy.  She  was  perfectly 
placid  over  it ;  not  at  all  inclined  to  mingle  her  tears 
with  the  milk  she  had  spilt. 

"  With  a  bit  of  luck  it  would  have  doubled  itself,  then  I 
could  have  returned  the  money  with  two  thousand  pounds 
in  hand,  and  no  one  would  have  been  any  the  wiser.  I 
have  done  it  before.  But  we  are  dead  out  of  luck  this 
year." 

"  I — ah — don't  like  to  hear  you  talk  like  that,  Jane.  It 
is  as  though  you — ah — hardly  understand  the  principle 
involved.     You  should  have  first  consulted  me." 

"  You  !  " 

Her  inveterate  susceptibility  to  humour  only  half  enabled 
her  to  check  the  ring  of  amusement  in  her  tone. 

"  Yes,  Jane,  me.  I  am  afraid  you — ah — treat  it  too 
lightly.  You  should  never  have  done  a  thing  like  that 
without  my  sanction." 

"  Wherefore,  0  Sapient  ?  " 

"  In  the  first  place  I  am  a  stickler  for  ever5^hing  being 
straight  and  above  board." 

"  I  hardly  concede  your  right,  my  dear  Edmund,  to  inter- 
vene in  my  purely  personal  affairs." 

"  I — ah — think  you  will  find  that  the  law  does." 

Again  she  made  the  unsuccessful  effort  to  conceal  the 
pleasure  she  derived  from  his  delicious  pomposity. 

"  Has  it  never  struck  you,  my  dear  Edmund,  that  to 
be  perfectly  literal  with  the  Law  of  England  is  to  be 
obsolete." 

"  I — ah — don't  go  into  fine  points.  The  fact,  Jane,  should 

319 


BROKE    OF    COVENDEN 

suffice  that  as  long  as  you  use  my  name  I  am  responsible 
for  the  uses  to  which  you  may  put  it." 

"  Very  well,  my  Edmund,  for  the  sake  of  the  argument 
I  grant  it ;  but  I  still  reserve  my  right  to  forget  it  when- 
ever I  choose.  Does  the  virtuous  Mr.  Breffit  propose  to 
adopt  the  role  of  Shylock  ?  " 

"  He  does." 

"  He  proposes  to  sell  us  up  ?  " 

"  No,  he — ah — wants  his  pound  of  flesh  more  literally." 

Our  hero  again  suddenly  broke  forth  into  the  guffaw 
he  had  checked  his  horse  to  employ.  It  burst  out  of  him 
in  just  the  same  irrational  fashion  as  in  the  country  lane. 

His  wife  was  startled  by  it.  She  then  noted  that  his 
eyes  were  slightly  bloodshot.  In  his  face  she  saw  the  ex- 
pression of  gray  weariness  that  had  been  first  observed 
there  so  recently.  She  had  a  pain  ;  and  for  the  moment 
all  the  fight  went  out  of  her. 

It  was  Broke  who  made  an  end  of  the  brief  interval  of 
silence  that  followed. 

"  We  put  ourselves  in  the  power,"  he  said,  "of  men  like 
these  and  they  do  not  hesitate  to  push  their  advantages 
home.  I  have  had  such  an  instance  of  the  man's  effrontery 
as  you  will  hardly  believe.     I  hardly  believe  it  myself." 

Mrs.  Broke  waited  with  a  calm  foreknowledge  of  what 
was  coming.     For  accuracy  of  guessing  she  was  famous. 

"  I — ah — don't  know  that  it  is  worth  while  tc  tell 
you." 

"  You  will  be  wise  if  you  do." 

"  Very  well.  You  may  know  that  this  fellow  Breffit  has 
put  his  son  in  Algernon's  place  with  thirty  thousand  a 
year.  Well,  this  morning  he  was  kind  enough  to  suggest — 
he  says  he — ah — doesn't  mind  which — that  one  of  our  girls 
should  marry  him." 

Again  the  ghost  laugh  rang  hollow  in  our  hero.  His 
wife  looked  at  him  patiently  with  a  tender  quizzical  ex- 
pression. 

"  I  never  guessed  what  an  old  ruffian  he  was  until  I 
saw  him  this  morning  in  poor  Algernon's  place.  He  is 
completely  changed.  He  is  like  the  rest  of  his  tribe : 
money  has  poisoned  him.  He  was — ah — good  enough  to 
put  me  on  an  equality  with  himself.    Noblesse  oblige,  you 

320 


IPHIGENIA 

know,  Mr.  Broke.  I  could  hardly  stand  it ;  I — ah — nearly 
laughed  in  his  face." 

He  passed  his  hands  through  his  hair  wearily. 

"  And  how  did  you  answer  him,  Edmund  ?  " 

"  What  could  I  ?  I — ah — took  up  my  hat  and 
bolted." 

"  I  gather  you  did  not  err  on  the  side  of  civility,  my 
Edmund." 

"  The  fellow  got  as  much  as  he  deserved — more  !  " 

"  Thirty  thousand  a  year,"  she  repeated  wistfully. 

"  It  makes  it  no  better — worse  if  anything.  It's  a 
bribe." 

"  There  is  one  phase  of  this  matter,  Edmund,  of  which 
you  force  me  to  remind  you.     A  recent  event  has  ruined 

U.S." 

"  In  a  sense  I — ah — suppose  it  has." 

"  And  .that  the  primary.  We  must  leave  Covenden,  or 
consent  to  be  sold  up." 

"  Surely  we  cannot  be  so  far  gone  as  that." 

His  voice  had  changed  dramatically. 

"  You  will  find  that  to  be  the  case.  And  I  want  you  to 
bear  in  mind  that  Mr.  Brefht  is  our  largest  creditor." 

"  But  you  forget  No.  3.  We  are  selling  it  on  lease. 
Surely  the  money  will  help  us  to  hold  on  for  a  bit." 

"  Edmund,  do  not  deceive  yourself.  We  are  com- 
promised far  more  deeply  than  I  think  you  realise.  Mr. 
Breffit's  purse  and  his  goodwill  have  been  propping  us  up 
for  several  years.  You  are  not  so  closely  in  touch  with 
our  affairs  as  I  am.  We  are  much  farther  gone  than  you 
think.  For  the  last  two  years  Mr.  Brefht  has  only  had 
to  say  the  word  for  Covenden  and  all  it  contains  to  be  sold 
over  our  heads." 

"  Why  has  the  fellow  not  said  it,  then  ?  " 

"  I  will  give  you  no  more  than  two  reasons.  The  first 
is  I  have  put  him  off  continually  with  appeals  to  his 
friendship  and  our  hopes  of  Billy.  The  second  I  will  leave 
you  to  guess  for  yourself." 

"  Impossible  ;  I — ah — refuse  to  believe  it.  The  fellow 
may  be  cunning,  but  he  cannot  have  had  the — ah — folly, 
the — ah — effrontery  to  play  such  a  game  as  that.  The  man 
must  be  mad." 

321  X 


BROKE    OF    COVENDEN 

*'  Not  mad,  my  Edmund.  If  madness  there  is  in  the 
matter  it  lies  in  us.  The  man  merely  moves  with  his  age. 
This  is  the  age  of  the  democracy." 

"  Faugh  !     You  disgust  me." 

"  Again,  my  Edmund,  for  the  hundred  thousandth  time 
it  is  my  disagreeable  duty  to  remind  you  that  this  is  not 
the  time  of  the  Plantagenets.  Persons  like  you  are  as  obsolete 
as  the  feudal  baron.  The  last  of  you  had  his  head 
cut  off  by  GUver  Cromwell.  We  are  democrats  all  living 
in  the  golden  age  of  the  people.  We  must  be  prepared  to 
offer  up  our  Iphigenia  on  their  altars." 

"  I  don't  know  how  you  can  talk  so,"  said  our  hero, 
hoarsely.     "  It's  blasphemous." 

"  We  are  confronted  with  the  bitter  truth.  When  Mr. 
Brefht  made  that  suggestion  this  morning,  he  showed 
his  hand.  He  could  have  added,  and  probably  would 
have  done  had  you  waited  to  hear,  '  Refuse  me  this  and  I 
sell  vou  up  !  '  " 

"My  God!  you  think  that?" 

"  I  am  perfectly  convinced  of  it." 

Broke's  chest  sank  ;  speech  seemed  to  fail  him.  He 
was  compelled  to  take  what  his  wife  said  for  granted. 
It  was  her  duty  to  navigate  the  wretched  vessel  through 
these  vast  and  deep  seas  of  an  infinite  complexity.  The 
requisite  patience  and  subtlety  were  beyond  him.  Thus 
when  the  cold  assurance  fell  from  her  lips  he  accepted  it, 
fantastic,  weird,  awful  as  it  was,  with  a  faith  that  was  un- 
questioning.    The  blow  shook  him  to  the  roots. 

"  I  should  suggest  Delia." 

His  wife's  brevity  was  so  pregnant  in  its  abrupt 
intrusion  on  his  thoughts  that  the  unhappy  gentleman 
was  startled  rather  painfully  out  of  the  slough  in  which  he 
was  all  but  lost. 

He  shaped  a  word  with  his  lips.  So  shaken  was  he  that 
for  the  moment  the  power  of  articulation  was  not  in  him. 

Mrs.  Broke  could  interpret  the  word  if  she  could  not 
hear  it. 

"  The  matter  is  one  of  life  and  death,"  she  said.  "  Shy- 
lock  insists  on  his  pound  of  flesh.  He  has  only  to  speak 
and  we  are  houseless  and  homeless.  Covenden  will  pro- 
bably become  a  shooting  box  for  his  son." 


IPHIGENIA 

Implacably  she  watched  the  barb  sink.  The  capacity 
he  had  so  long  admired  in  her  of  being  able  to  act  purely 
from  considerations  of  expedience  was  standing  her  in  good 
stead  at  this  moment.  She  had  made  up  her  mind  to  be 
ruthless.  Half  measures  would  be  fatal.  The  wretched 
victim  must  be  pierced  and  mutilated  if  ultimately  he  was 
to  issue  forth  to  his  salvation.  His  pride  must  be  nailed 
to  the  tree. 

"  I  suggest  Deha." 

"  You  don't  know  what  you  are  saying,  woman." 

"  You  have  six  girls,  but  only  one  Covenden." 

"  Ugh  !     Brefht,  shocking  young  cad." 

"  So  I  believe.     The  heathen  deities  are  not  nice." 

"  I  cannot  do  it,  I  will  not  do  it.     The  idea  revolts  me." 

"  You  have  considered  fully  the  unhappy  alternative  ?  " 

In  his  distress  our  hero  rose  from  his  chair  to  stride 
about  the  room.  She  watched  his  grotesque  figure  as  it 
lurched  up  and  down  the  carpet.  There  was  a  wan  smile- 
on  her  lips.  A  pair  of  wild  horses  had  been  hitched 
to  the  unyielding  thing  he  called  his  pride,  and  she  was 
looking  on  at  the  savage  spectacle  of  it  being  rent  asunder. 
Something  of  the  sensation  was  hers  of  an  ancient  Roman 
witnessing  a  massacre  of  Christians  in  the  amphi- 
theatre. 

The  victim  had  to  choose  between  the  ancestral  home 
of  his  race  and  one  of  the  sacred  emblems  of  it.  He  must 
sacrifice  Covenden.  or  he  must  sacrifice  a  daughter.  The 
horrid  bloody  Moloch  when  he  makes  his  demand  will  not 
be  fobbed  off ;  he  insists  on  the  letter.  The  demand 
must  be  met  with  a  strip  of  our  flesh  or  the  hot  tears  of  our 
hearts. 

"  Why  Delia  ?  "  he  stopped  suddenly  to  ask  in  the 
fierce  height  of  his  torment.  "  Why  she  more  than 
another  ?  " 

"  She  is  the  youngest." 

"That  is  no  reason.  Or  if  it  is  a  reason  it  points  the 
other  way." 

"  She  is  not  quite  so  dependable  as  the  others." 

"  How  ?     What  do  jou  mean  ?  " 

A  fortnight  ago  he  could  not  have  brought  himself  to 
put  such  a  question.     But  the  phenomenal  has  only  to 

323 


BROKE    OF    COVENDEN 

happen  to  us  once  to  change  us.  The  act  of  his  son 
had  smeared  over  and  defaced  for  ever  the  beautifully  ruled 
chart  of  human  behaviour  it  had  been  his  invariable  habit 
to  consult.  Dating  from  that  he  had  no  bearings  by  which 
to  go. 

"  Her  tutor  has  done  her  no  good,  I  regret  to  say." 

"  Tutor,  tutor  !     What  tutor  ?     What  do  you  mean  ?  " 

"  I  refer  to  the  man  Emma  sent  to  coach  her.  The 
wretched  child  has  fallen  violently  in  love." 

A  fortnight  ago  he  would  probably  have  informed  his 
wife  she  was  a  fool  in  just  so  many  words,  for  permitting 
herself  to  evolve  such  a  theory  in  regard  to  a  daughter  of 
his  house.  Now  he  could  only  resume  his  peregrination 
of  the  room  with  another  nerve  laid  bare.  The  world  in 
which  he  had  lived  for  sixty  peaceful  years  was  falling 
in  upon  him.  The  dust  of  it  was  running  up  his  nostrils 
and  down  his  throat ;  it  seemed  to  thick  his  blood.  The 
debris  was  falling  upon  him  too  ;  mighty  blocks  of  it  had 
pinned  him  already.  They  were  breaking  his  ribs  against 
the  very  walls  of  his  heart.  If  this  sort  of  thing  went  on, 
his  veins  must  snap  and  he  would  have  to  die. 

With  our  hero  continuing  to  stagger  up  and  down  the 
room  and  shaking  it  heavily  with  every  fall  of  his  foot,  his 
wife  withdrew  her  attention  from  his  strange  figure  and  wrote 
a  letter.  It  was  a  brief  note  of  invitation  to  Mr.  Breffit 
the  younger  ;  it  craved  the  pleasure  of  his  company  at 
luncheon  at  two  o'clock  on  the  following  Saturday.  On 
signing  it  she  summoned  him  to  read,  while  she  addressed 
an  envelope. 

She  finished  her  task  a  full  two  minutes  before  Broke 
had  finished  his,  brief  as  it  was.  When  he  returned  the 
note  she  was  oppressed  by  the  coldness  of  his  hands. 

"  Give  me  a  bit  of  time,"  he  said  in  a  voice  she  could 
hardly  hear.  "  Time  to  think  it  over.  Mustn't  decide 
it  to-night.     No  need  to  decide  it  to-night." 

"  Yes,  Edmund,  to-night.  We  must  make  up  our 
minds  here  and  now.  We  can  then  put  it  away  from 
us  once  and  for  all.  It  is  like  having  a  tooth  drawn,  you 
know  ;  have  it  pulled  at  the  first  twinge  to  save  much 
pain." 

"  Yes,  it's  right  I  daresay.  Always  right,  Jane,  in  these 

324 


IPHIGENIA 

things.     But  I  am  in  no  mood  to-night.     It's  late.     Save 
it  until  to-morrow.     Our  heads  will  be  clearer." 

"  No,  Edmund,  to-night.  Let  us  have  done  with  it.  It 
is  the  only  way.     We  spare  ourselves  if  we  do." 

Suddenly  the  tormented  gentleman  broke  out  in  his 
more  strident  self. 

"  You  shall  not  do  it ;  upon  my  soul  you  shall  not ! " 
He  made  a  grab  at  the  letter  now  in  his  wife's  possession, 
tore  it  from  her  fingers,  crushed  it,  and  flung  it  among  the 
ashes  long  since  cold  in  the  grate. 

His  wife  met  him  with  a  straight  figure  and  staunch 
eyes. 

"  You  seal  your  doom,  Edmund." 
"  Let  them  do  their  worst,  and  curse  them." 
He  walked  out  of  the  room.  The  door  slammed  behind 
him.  A  little  afterwards  a  second  door  slammed  far  away 
in  the  house.  By  the  dull  and  heavy  clang  Mrs.  Broke 
divined  it  to  be  the  great  door  of  the  hall.  She  looked 
at  the  clock.  It  was  five  minutes  to  two  of  the  May 
morning. 

Deliberately  she  took  up  the  pen  for  the  second  time, 
and  rewrote  word  for  word  her  invitation  to  Mr.  Breffit. 
She  then  quitted  the  room,  dropped  the  letter  in  the  post- 
bag  in  the  hall ;  and,  proceeding  to  the  housekeeper's  room, 
deserted  hours  ago,  struck  a  hght,  lit  a  spirit  lamp,  and 
made  herself  a  cup  of  tea. 


325 


CHAPTER  XXVI 

In  which  Two  Matrimonial  Richmonds  take 
the  Field 

THREE  days  later  the  crowning  glory  of  England, 
its  press,  and  the  most  radiant  section  of  that 
emblem,  the  halfpenny  journal,  was  selling  like  hot  cakes 
with  the  aid  of  a  spicy  bill  of  fare.  With  pregnant  Roman 
capitals  as  black  as  thunder,  every  sooty  traveller  of  the 
Underground,  every  struggler  for  the  omnibus,  every 
patron  of  the  Tube,  every  habitue  of  the  Aerated  Bread 
shop  and  chop  house  of  the  City  was  bidden  to  the  ban- 
quet. There  could  be  no  doubt  as  to  the  stimulating 
nature  of  the  feast.  "A  Thames  Bubble  —  Collapse  of 
the  Thames  Valley  Goldfields  Syndicate — Meeting  of 
Shareholders — Stormy  Scenes — Remarkable  Speech  of  a 
Director." 

Here  was  meat  for  the  halfpenny  clientele  to  gloat  upon ! 

Our  hero's  excursion  into  eloquence  was  reported  entire. 
His  periods  were  rounded  and  his  coherence  embellished 
by  the  arts  of  journalism,  but  nothing  could  bereave  his 
utterances  of  their  innate  and  peculiar  quality  and  of  the 
naivete  of  him  who  gave  them  forth.  As  one  organ  took 
occasion  to  declare  in  a  leading  article,  "The  quaint 
spectacle  of  a  guinea  pig  waving  aloft  the  banner  of  purity, 
and  calling  down  fire  from  heaven  upon  the  heads  of  its 
kind,  was  enough  to  make  the  British  public  sit  up  and 
purr."  The  inciter  of  this  feline  feat  awoke  to  find  him- 
self more  notorious  than  he  had  ever  been  in  his  life  before. 
The  illustrated  press  came  out  with  pictures  of  him  in 


TWO    MATRIMONIAL    RICHMONDS 

varying  forms  and  stages  of  the  libellous ;  Society 
Snapshots  had  a  short  biography  by  A  Fag  whom  He 
Had  Kicked  at  Eton ;  and  Classy  Cuttings  revealed 
to  its  readers  the  kind  of  shaving  soap  he  used,  and  settled 
for  ever  the  vexed  question  whether  he  wore  his  hair  parted 
in  the  middle  or  at  the  side. 

It  was  May  now,  and  the  deepest  gloom  seemed  to  have 
settled  on  the  family  of  Covenden.  There  was  to  be  no 
London  season  for  them  this  year,  with  the  exception  of 
DeUa,  who  had  been  condemned  to  spend  a  fortnight  at 
Grosvenor  Street  with  Aunt  Emma  that  she  might  be 
presented,  and  who  would,  as  she  vowed  with  inexpres- 
sibly bitter  tears,  have  preferred  to  stay  at  home.  Not 
that  she  was  any  happier  at  home.  Her  loss  of  colour 
and  animation  had  been  commented  upon  by  other  people 
as  well  as  her  Uncle  Charles.  There  appeared  to  be  nothing 
in  which  she  took  an  interest.  Indeed,  as  the  days  passed 
her  pinched  and  listless  look  grew  too  obvious  to  be  dis- 
regarded. 

Too  well  did  her  sisters  know  the  cause  of  her  unhappi- 
ness.  But  they  withheld  their  pity ;  indeed,  they  were 
filled  with  scorn.  The  reflection  upon  themselves  was 
by  far  the  most  grievous  they  had  ever  had  to  bear.  They 
could  hardly  believe  it  of  one  who  in  external  things  re- 
sembled them  one  and  all  so  exactly  ;  in  one  whom  nature 
must  have  designed  to  be  one  of  their  clan.  They  could 
only  ascribe  it  to  her  having  those  films  to  her  eyes,  and 
those  lashes  that  curled  up  at  the  ends.  They  were  humbly 
grateful  that  they  were  without  them,  now  that  they  saw 
what  the  possession  of  them  meant.  If,  as  they  shrewdly 
supposed,  such  things  as  films  and  curling  eyelashes  were 
allowed  hy  judges  to  be  marks  of  beauty,  as  were  pricked 
ears  in  a  bull  terrier  or  bowed  legs  in  a  bull-pup,  they 
began  to  see  the  force  of  that  adage  with  which  they 
were  wont  to  console  themselves :  that  if  you  were 
beautiful,  it  was  very  difficult  to  be  good.  Not  that  in 
their  owti  opinion  their  youngest  sister  was  any  less  ugly 
than  anybody  else. 

In  any  case  they  remained  inflexible.  She  was  sent 
to  Coventry  for  an  indefinite  period,  and  it  was  only  after 
Joan  had  taken  a  whole  day  to  think  the  matter  over  that 

327 


BROKE    OF    COVENDEN 

she  was  allowed  to  retain  her  privileges  in  regard  to  their 
common  room. 

"  It  is  only  because  of  her  youth,"  said  that  justiciary, 
delivering  judgment  before  the  court.  "If  it  were  not 
this  room  should  be  forbidden  her." 

A  slight  sigh  of  rehef  was  heard  to  pass  round  the  earnest 
assembly,  and  Harriet  rose  hurriedly  to  quit  it  lest  any- 
body should  see  there  were  tears  in  her  eyes. 

The  same  Spartan  resolution  was  extended  to  Billy, 
the  hero  with  the  godlike  attributes,  whose  radiance  had 
dazzled  them  from  the  time  they  first  crawled  on  the 
nursery  floor.  It  tore  their  very  hearts,  but  anything 
in  the  nature  of  a  command  from  their  father  was  their 
highest  conception  of  law.  So  obedient  were  they  to 
his  mandate  on  the  cruel  subject,  that  not  only  did  they 
refrain  from  breathing  the  name  of  their  brother  in  his 
presence,  but  by  a  tacit  consent  it  was  banished  in  their 
private  intercourse.  Delia,  it  is  true,  had  so  far  forgotten 
herself  as  to  mention  it  once,  but  such  terrible  freezing 
glances  had  she  received  for  her  pains  that  they  did  not 
think  she  would  venture  to  do  so  again.  Their  mother 
also  had  certainly  spoken  of  him  several  times  in  their 
hearing.  But  their  perfect  loyalty  to  their  father  forbade 
their  taking  pleasure  in  these  occasions.  They  could 
not  even  hale  them  with  relief.  Their  brother's  name 
in  the  mouth  of  their  mother  was  lacking  in  authenticity. 
It  had  never  been  possible  for  them  to  exalt  her  to  the 
side  of  their  father  in  the  shrine  of  their  idolatry.  In  her 
way  she  was  perhaps  more  dignified,  more  unapproach- 
able, and  less  easy  to  get  on  with;  but  wdth  all  these 
gifts  she  had  not  that  natural,  impregnable,  lofty  splendour 
as  had  he.  The  truth  was  that  no  human  being  had. 
Their  father  had  that  innate  and  native  something  that 
rendered  him  supreme.  The  king  could  do  no  wrong. 
He  was  all  justice,  all  wisdom,  all  charity,  all  tenderness 
and  watchful  love.  If  he  had  asked  one  of  them  to  place 
her  right  hand  between  the  glowing  bars  of  the  fire,  she 
would  have  done  so  at  once,  and  have  kept  it  there  un- 
flinchingly until  told  to  take  it  out.  They  hardly  knew 
in  what  degree  they  were  mortifying  their  instincts  by 
banishing  the  fair  imige  of  their  brother.  But  their 
deity  demanded  it ;  they  as'^ecl  no  more. 

328 


TWO   MATRIMONIAL   RICHMONDS 

Their  mother's  conduct  in  the  matter  was  far  otherwise. 
She  spoke  of  him  openly,  and  had  even  suggested  that  it 
would  give  her  pleasure  if  they  made  a  pilgrimage  to  the 
cottage  on  the  hill  to  see  his  wife.  It  would  have  given 
them  pleasure,  too,  because  whatever  their  father's  behests; 
the  vital  fact  could  not  be  strangled  in  their  hearts  that 
Billy  was  Billy  still.  Even  the  mightiest  law-giver  cannot 
induce  in  us  oblivion  of  what  once  has  been.  And  again 
they  had  a  natural  curiosity  to  gaze  upon  the  creature 
who  had  wrought  their  brother's  ruin.  Extravagant 
pictures  of  her  were  in  their  minds.  They  would  have 
paid  their  shillings  to  behold  her  with  even  greater  eager- 
ness than  those  they  paid  to  behold  the  blue-nosed  ape 
in  the  menagerie  that  came  every  year  to  Cuttisham  Fair. 
The  pictures  in  their  minds  coincided  exactly  with  that 
variety  of  monster.  Less  uncompromising  types  of  con- 
science might  have  found  it  easy  to  provide  an  excuse 
to  look  upon  her,  but  the  mandate  of  the  one  authentic 
oracle  must  be  obeyed  not  in  the  letter  merely,  but 
in  the  spirit. 

Delia  returned  from  London  less  happy  if  possible  than 
when  she  went  away.  To  every  reasonable  and  right- 
thinking  girl  the  experiences  crowded  into  that  fortnight 
would  at  least  have  been  exciting.  But  the  child,  as  her 
aunt  wrote  to  her  mother  immediately  on  her  return,  in 
a  lettei  not  overburdened  by  delicacy,  had  been  wholly 
dull,  uninterested,  and  uninspired  by  dances  and  parties, 
and  even  the  Drawing-room  itself.  Although  Joan's 
dress,  altered  the  season  before  last  to  fit  Jane,  had  been 
altered  again  so  cunningly — she  was  nearer  in  size  to  Jane 
than  any  of  the  rest — that  it  fitted  her  to  perfection,  and 
a  court  hair-dresser  had  come  specially  out  of  Bond  Street 
and  had  done  her  hair  in  a  beautiful  manner,  and  her  aunt 
had  lent  her  a  string  of  pearls  to  put  round  her  throat,  as 
the  child  had  none  of  her  own,  the  maid  who  had  dressed 
her  was  prepared  to  swear  that  she  could  not  be  induced 
to  look  in  the  cheval  glass  at  the  figure  she  presented. 
As  her  aunt  said,  such  an  unnatural  child  never  was  known. 
Again  it  was  averred  that  she  went  through  the  ceremony 
without  asking  a  question  or  betraying  the  least  curiosity, 
without  getting  flurried  or  exhibiting    any  perturbation 

3-9 


BROKE    OF    COVENDEN 

at  all.  Even  when  she  made  her  curtsey  to  the  Presence, 
and  touched  the  rather  fat  hand  of  Royalty  with  her  lips, 
she  displayed  no  symptom  of  nervousness,  nor  blushed, 
nor  hesitated,  nor  showed  the  slightest  disposition  to  trip 
over  her  train.  As  her  aunt  said,  her  conduct  all  through 
the  day  was  unbelievable,  unchristian,  and  quite  un- 
worthy of  human  nature.  She  could  only  explain  it  on 
the  assumption  that  she  wanted  iron. 

All  the  same  it  was  hardly  likely  that  iron,  invaluable 
as  that  commodity  was  known  to  be,  could  prevail  against 
inherent  weakness  of  mind.  Unmistakable  evidences  of 
the  fell  symptom  had  been  discovered  by  her  lynx-eyed 
patroness.  There  could  be  little  doubt  it  was  the  result 
of  that  pernicious  system  of  inter-marriage  which  so  long 
had  been  the  bane  of  old  families.  Even  now  the  gifted 
but  eminently  practical  lady  had  been  moved  to  write 
a  brochure  on  the  painful  subject ;  it  would  hit  the  House 
of  Lords  harder  than  it  had  ever  been  hit  before.  Also 
it  would  hit  it  in  its  tenderest  spot.  In  the  melancholy 
circumstances  her  aunt  had  come  to  the  conclusion,  re- 
luctantly to  the  conclusion,  that  it  would  be  futile,  a  waste 
of  time  and  money,  to  seek  to  ameliorate  her  mental  state 
by  sending  her  to  a  seat  of  female  learning.  At  the  con- 
clusion of  a  long  and  energetically  worded  letter,  Lady 
Bosket  said  that  never  before  had  it  been  brought  home 
to  her  with  such  overwhelming  force  what  the  disadvan- 
tages were  under  which  her  sister-in-law  laboured  in  the 
acquisition  of  men  to  marry  her  girls.  If  men  would  put 
up  with  that  kind  they  would  put  up  with  anj^.  Even 
the  least  hopeless,  the  least  impossible  of  them  all,  pre- 
sumably the  flower,  had  proved  on  a  closer  inspection  to 
be  weak  of  mind. 

Delia,  although  she  returned  duly  fortified  with  the 
possession  of  a  box  of  iron  tablets,  and  a  certificate  testi- 
f}'ing  to  the  weakness  of  her  mental  character,  seemed 
nowise  the  better  for  either.  Nor  had  her  glimpse  of 
the  London  season  done  anything  to  redeem  her  personal 
appearance.  The  rings  round  her  eyes,  the  only  tolerable 
features  about  her,  were  more  marked  than  ever.  Her 
cheeks  were  paler  ;  she  was  more  lackadaisical,  and  she 
could  hardly  be  got  to  utter  a  word.     Her  conversation 

330 


TWO    MATRIMONIAL    RICHMONDS 

alternated  between  the  limits  of  yes  and  no,  a  rather 
abrupt  mental  range  that  lent  colour  to  the  uncompro- 
mising theory  of  her  aunt.  She  went  off  to  walk  all  day 
by  herself,  only  reappearing  at  the  hours  set  apart  for 
meals,  and  when  she  did  so  it  was  only  a  formal  act  in  her, 
for  she  made  no  pretences  of  eating  them.  Not  only  did 
she  shun  the  society  of  her  sisters,  but  also  that  of  every 
human  being. 

There  was  one  slight  alteration  in  her,  however,  which 
her  sisters  allowed  to  be  for  the  better.  She  no  longer 
permitted  herself  that  undue,  that  licentious  indulgence 
in  tears.  They  did  not  lie  so  near  the  surface  ;  quite 
a  chance  allusion  would  no  longer  call  them  forth  ;  while 
it  was  to  be  deduced  from  the  absence  of  a  red  inflamma- 
tion about  her  eyelids  that  she  did  not  spend  so  many 
hours  in  her  bedroom  in  private  weepings.  It  could  at 
least  be  said  of  her  that  she  had  brought  back  a  keener 
sense  of  decency  from  the  London  season. 

One  day  a  strange  man  sat  down  to  luncheon  with 
them,  a  man  whom  they  could  not  remember  to  have  seen 
before.  He  was  a  rather  good-looking  person,  young, 
handsome  in  a  florid  style ;  he  was  very  carefully 
dressed,  his  €very  hair  was  in  place.  Mr.  Breffit 
was  his  name,  and  their  father,  as  so  often  of  late 
was  his  wont,  hardly  said  a  word  throughout  the  meal. 
Their  mother,  as  was  usual  with  her  when  there  was  a 
stranger  present,  was  in  great  conversational  feather, 
and  singularly  enough  she  made  one  or  two  quite  flatter- 
ing references  to  Delia,  who  had  the  strange  man  for  her 
neighbour,  and  seemed  to  insist  in  her  delicate  way  that 
Delia  should  converse  with  him.  Their  surprise  and 
consternation  were  complete.  Never  before  had  one  of 
them,  not  even  Joan  herself,  been  singled  out  for  public 
notice  by  the  august  president  of  their  destinies.  And 
Delia  of  all  people  ! 

"The  child  is  so  shy,"  said  her  mother  to  Mr.  Breffit 
with  a  delightful  ringing  laugh,  and  it  had  that  note  of 
archness  in  it  which  showed  she  was  at  her  best ;  "  a.  man 
always  overawes  her.  He  has  the  effect  the  mouse  had 
on  little  Miss  Muffet.  Was  it  a  mouse  or  a  spider,  I  am 
sure  I  forget  ?     Now,   Mr.  Breffit,  I  look  to  you  not  to 

331 


BROKE    OF   COVENDEN 

frighten  her  away,  Speak  to  her  nicely,  and  then  she 
will  understand  that  you  are  not  going  to  bite  her." 

Almost  immediately  Mr.  Breffit  made  an  impassioned 
allusion  to  the  weather. 

It  was  their  mother,  however,  who  had  to  sustain  the 
chief  share  in  the  talk.  Without  her  aid  there  would 
have  been  hardly  any  conversation  at  all.  Delia,  in  spite 
of  her  new  honours,  never  allowed  herself  to  go  beyond 
the  limits  prescribed  by  her  habitual  "  yes  "  and  "  no." 
Mr.  Breffit  also  did  not  seem  to  be  gifted  with  powers  of 
any  remarkable  range.  He  confined  himself  to  one  topic 
mainly,  and  that  a  rather  abstruse  one,  on  which,  to, do 
him  justice,  he  really  talked  very  well.  Did  they  know 
So-and-So  of  Such-and-Such  ?  He  was  a  very  old  and 
cherished  friend  of  his.  He  had  just  been  spending  a 
fortnight  at  Such-and-Such.  The  number  of  people  who 
hankered  for  him  as  a  guest  was  wonderful ;  his  comments 
upon  them  and  their  houses  were  very  flattering  indeed, 
so  that  his  conversation  was  not  unlike  and  just  as  enter- 
taining as  a  society  newspaper  read  aloud.  And  when 
he  was  not  effusive  he  could  be  patronizing.  His  amiable 
vein  of  patronage  was  placed  at  the  service  of  those  persons 
who  scarcely  could  be  said  to  ht  fixed  stars  in  the  shining 
circle  of  which  he  himself  was  a  planet.  When  he  men- 
tioned them,  a,s  by  the  gentle  but  unseen  arts  of  his  hostess 
he  was  led  to  do  presently,  he  revealed  a  not  unpleasing 
little  gift  of  satire. 

"  But,  after  all,  one  doesn't  know  them,  you  know, 
although  one  runs  up  against  them  sometimes,"  was  a 
phrase  he  enunciated  with  a  gusto  that  charmed  her. 

"  You  were  at  Cambridge  ?  " 

"  Oh  yes  ;  three  years  at  Trinity,  mostly  wasted  I  am 
afraid." 

"  Forgive  me  if  I  differ.  Did  you  meet  a  young  man 
of  the  name  of  Porter,  may  I  ask  ?  He  was  of  your 
college,  and,  I  believe,  contemporary." 

"  Porter — Porter."  Mr.  Breffit  knitted  his  brows  in 
deep  meditation.  "  Porter — let  me  see.  I  seem  to  know 
the  name  ;  but  Trinity,  of  course,  is  not  a  small  college. 
I  believe  there  was  a  man  of  that  name  who  rowed  bow 
in  one  of  the  boats." 


TWO    MATRIMONIAL    RICHMONDS 

Mr.  Breffit  pondered  profoundly. 

"  He  comes  from  Cuttisham.  His  father  is  a  book* 
seller  there.     No,  I  suppose  you  would  not." 

"  No,  of  course,"  said  Mr.  Breffit  with  alacrity.  "  It 
is  hardly  likely." 

"  Still,  as  he  came  from  this  neighbourhood,  and  he 
went  to  the  same  college  about  the  same  time,  I  thought 
you  might  perhaps.  I  am  interested  in  him  because  he 
is  a  sort  of  protege  of  my  sister-in-law.  She  predicts 
great  things  of  him.  I  refer,  of  course,  to  Lady  Bosket, 
the  author  of  Poses  in  the  Opaque.  I  think  I  betray  no 
secret  when  I  say  that  he  owes  it  to  her  that  he  found 
his  way  to  Cambridge." 

"  Porter,  Porter — ah,  yes,  of  course  I  remember.  There 
was  a  man  of  the  name  of  Porter,  now  you  mention  him  ; 
a  very  harmless,  quiet,  reading  man,  although  I  can  hardly 
recall  him." 

"  I  should  think  he  would  be.  But  I  gather  that  you 
did  not  know  him  very  intimately." 

"  Not  very." 

Mr.  Breffit  added  to  the  significance  of  his  tone  a  gesture 
of  polite  deprecation. 

"  A  recluse  probably  ?  " 

"  I  really  don't  know,  but  I  should  say  he  was." 

"  Was  he  well  thought  of  in  the  University  ?  " 

"  I  really  don't  know,  but  I  should  say  not." 

"  You  surprise  me.  My  sister-in-law  will  be  disappointed 
if  he  does  not  do  well." 

"  It  is  quite  probable  he  was  clever.  Outsiders  mostly 
are. 

Her  object  achieved,  Mrs.  Broke  changed  the  topic. 

"  How  is  your  father  ?  " 

In  spite  of  the  armour  of  his  self-esteem,  the  young  man 
was  disconcerted  by  the  suddenness  of  the  question.  He 
relapsed  upon  a  slight  uneasiness,  which  in  one  of  his 
splendid  self-possession  was  not  expected.  Under  her 
perfectly  frank  and  demure  gaze  a  shade  of  tawny  deepened 
in  him. 

"  I  have  not  had  the  pleasure  of  seeing  him  for  quite 
a  long  time,"  she  said,  to  soften  a  certain  awkwardness 
in  the  pause. 

333 


BROKE    OF    COVENDEN 

"  I  was  not  aware  that  you  knew  him,"  said  Mr.  Breffit 
languidly. 

"  He  has  been  a  particular  friend  of  Mr.  Broke's  for 

twenty  years." 

"  Oh  yes,  I  daresay." 

There  was  a  faint  but  firm  implication  in  the  air  of  Mr 
Breffit  that  he  would  thank  her  to  dismiss  the  subject. 

Our  hypercritical  young  gentleman  had  already  made 
up  his  mind  that  he  had  never  been  so  bored  in  his  life. 
He  supposed  that  old  county  families  were  all  very  well 
in  their  way,  but  if  this  menage  was  a  fair  average  specimen 
of  what  they  were  in  general,  long  might  he  be  spared 
from  contact  with  them !  To  begin  with,  the  place  itself 
seemed  to  smell  of  about  three  centuries  behind  the  present. 
The  musty  old-world  atmosphere  was  excellent  doubtless, 
but  he  was  not  sure  whether  he  would  not  prefer  to  dis- 
pense with  a  few  links  in  his  pedigree,  and  rub  along 
without  it.  There  was  the  pompous  overbearing  old  bird 
of  a  father  at  the  far  end  of  the  massive  mahogany,  who 
never  by  any  chance  spoke  a  word  to  anybody,  but 
swilled  ale  and  gobbled  away  at  beef  with  a  very  wide 
mouth,  a  kind  of  combination  of  a  butcher  and  a  farmer, 
with  a  face  the  colour  of  a  piece  of  raw  liver,  and  a  nose 
on  him  like  the  handle  of  a  door.  Then  there  were  half 
a  dozen  girls,  whom  he  took  to  be  his  daughters,  without 
exception  the  ugliest  set  of  women  he  had  ever  seen.  They 
were  all  nose  and  elbow.  They,  too,  never  by  any  chance 
opened  their  mouths  except  for  purposes  of  eating,  which, 
to  do  them  justice,  they  did  with  marked  effect.  One 
of  them  sat  beside  him,  and  when  he  tried  to  talk  to  her 
she  said  "  yes "  and  "  no."  However,  to  give  credit 
where  credit  was  due,  the  mother  was  a  bit  better.  You 
would  not  exactly  call  her  a  beauty,  but  she  did  not  seem 
to  be  such  a  bad  old  sort.  She  was  rather  pleasant  to  talk 
to,  althoutih  she  had  a  foolish  habit  of  asking  questions. 

Still  all  these  disabilities  paled  their  significance  before 
the  luncheon.  He  could  truthfully  say,  speaking  out 
of  a  long  and  varied  experience,  it  was  the  very  worst 
lunch  to  which  he  had  ever  sat  down.  The  one  they 
chucked  at  you  at  Lord's  for  half-a-crown  was  a  repast 
by  comparison.     No  table  napkins,  no  knives  for  the  fish, 

334 


TWO    MATRIMONIAL   RICHMONDS 

no  vegetables,  hardly  a  decent  salad,  tough  mutton,  and 
underdone  beef,  ale  only  fit  for  harvesters,  and  claret  only 
fit  for  the  pigs.  There  was  nothing  else.  If  there  was 
anything  else  you  wanted  you  had  to  go  without.  The 
servants,  too,  seemed  as  uppish  as  the  devil,  and  as  slow 
as  a  funeral.  It  was  a  lunch  you  would  have  thought 
anybody  would  have  been  ashamed  to  put  on,  and  how 
people  in  the  position  they  were  supposed  to  occupy  had 
the  face  to  do  it  he  did  not  know.  If  this  was  what  being 
before  the  Conquest  meant,  thank  God  his  poor,  dear  old 
father  was  such  a  shocking  old  bounder  ! 

Our  hypercritical  young  friend  was  thus  far  gone  in 
personal  discomfort,  when  the  invasion  of  the  room,  by 
two  men  he  had  never  seen  before,  served  to  distract  his 
attention  from  his  immediate  needs.  One  was  an  oldish, 
misshapen,  funny  -  looking  little  cove,  in  shabby  tweeds 
and  cloth  gaiters,  with  a  straw  in  his  mouth.  Your  first 
impression  of  him  was  that  he  was  a  groom  down  on  his 
luck  who  was  looking  for  a  job.  Your  impression  was 
confirmed  when  you  noticed  how  bleared  his  eyes  were, 
and  how  fat  was  his  nose.  Drink  had  been  his  downfall ; 
there  could  be  no  doubt  about  that. 

The  man  who  came  with  him  was  also  a  rum-looking 
fellow.  He  was  a  meek  and  mild  young  old  man  of  thirty- 
five  or  so,  with  an  earnest  and  perplexed  expression.  He 
was  very  pale,  and  thin  and  high  in  the  shoulders.  His 
peaked  face  had  a  very  anxious  look  upon  it,  and  was 
subject  occasionally  to  a  grotesque  nervous  contortion. 
His  narrow  flat-chested  appearance  suggested  that  he 
had  only  one  lung.  He  followed  on  the  heels  of  the 
drunken  groom  with  the  straw,  and  Mrs.  Broke  beckoning 
to  him,  he  was  good  enough  to  come  and  sit  next  to  our 
observant  young  friend,  who,  with  the  swift  insight  into 
men  and  things  that  had  long  been  a  source  of  pride  to 
its  possessor,  had  diagnosed  him  already  as  the  local 
curate. 

"  I  have  brought  Harry,"  said  the  man  with  the  straw 
in  a  hoarse  loud  voice.  "  We  should  ha'  stayed  over  at 
the  Court  only  their  whisky  is  so  poisonous.  Last 
time  I  said  never  again  ;  besides,  Harry  wanted  to  come 
and  see  you.     And  how's  my  little  cockyoly  birds  ?  All 

335 


BROKE    OF    COVENDEN 

quite  well  thank  you,  Uncle  Charles,  and  hope  you  are  the 
same — what  ?  " 

The  funny  old  bounder  took  a  seat  in  the  midst  of  the 
girls  some  distance  away,  rather  to  the  relief  of  young  Mr. 
Brefi&t,  who,  however,  noted  with  envy  that  the  old  swell 
of  a  butler  came  forward  with  far  more  alacrity  than 
he  had  yet  exhibited,  with  a  jar  of  whisky  and  a  syphon 
of  soda  water.  Groom  or  no  groom,  the  man  with  the  straw 
was  devilish  lucky  to  be  able  to  escape  that  ale  and  claret 
in  this  manner. 

In  the  meantime  the  young-old  man  was  beaming  with 
anxious  gravity  upon  his  hostess.  It  was  a  stereotyped 
and  conventional  gesture,  and  he  performed  it  with  a  dogged 
solemnity  as  of  one  doing  his  duty. 

"  Charmed  to  see  you  about  again,  Harry,"  said  Mrs. 
Broke,  with  an  affectionate  smile  accompanied  by  a  most 
motherly  tone.  "  How  is  the  poor  dear  chest  ?  Is  it  two 
lungs  still,  or  do  you  now  pin  your  faith  on  one  ?  " 

"  One  and  a  bit,"  said  Harry,  in  a  wheezy  whisper. 

"  I  congratulate  you  on  the  bit.  How  tenacious  of  you. 
To  my  knowledge  you  have  held  on  to  that  bit  for  the  last 
ten  years." 

"  I  want  to  do  the  right  thing,"  said  the  young-old  man 
in  a  whisper  wheezier  than  ever.  "They  tell  me  it  will  be 
inconvenient  if  I  give  up,  so  I  am  doing  what  I  can  to  stay 
on." 

"  Then  that  is  why  you  wintered  at  Davos  ?  What  a 
devotion  to  duty  !  " 

"  His  rector  must  think  a  lot  of  him  if  he  sent  him  to 
Davos,"  his  neighbour  made  the  comment  to  himself. 

"  Do  you  think  so  ?  "  said  the  young-old  man.  "  I 
always  try  to  do  the  right  thing." 

"  My  dear  Harry,  why  assure  one  of  that  ?  Everybody 
knows  it.  One  never  thinks  of  you  without  recalling  to 
one's  mind  poor  dear  Nelson.  He  copyrighted  that  phrase 
about  '  England  expects,'  but  one  feels  all  the  time  that 
it  is  a  plagiarism  from  your  life  with  its  singleness  of  aim 
and  integrity  of  purpose." 

Mrs.  Broke  opened  her  blue  eyes  to  their  widest  and 
beamed  upon  him.  A  tinge  of  colour  came  into  the  young- 
old  man's  wan  cheeks,  and  he  smiled  faintly. 

3?fi 


TWO    MATRIMONIAL    RICHMONDS 

"  I  think  duty  is  so  beautiful,"  Mrs.  Broke  went  on. 
"  After  all,  the  unfaltering  performance  of  it  is  the  only  thing 
that  reconciles  us  to  our  lot.  Without  it  existence  would 
indeed  be  hollow.  One  wonders,  Harry,  that  more  people 
have  not  dedicated  their  hves  to  it,  as  you  have  done.  We 
should  be  a  happier,  a  healthier,  a  more  stable  race." 

"  Harry  is  the  happiest,  healthiest,  and  most  stable  devil 
I  ever  saw,"  said  Lord  Bosket,  at  the  other  end  of  the  table, 
in  an  aside  to  Broke. 

"  Surely  he  can't  last  long," 

"  I  don't  know,  he's  a  queer  bird.  Everybody  has  said 
for  the  last  ten  years  that  he  can't  last  long,  but  here  he  is 
still  drinkin'  draught  stout  and  pla5dn'  patience.  He 
wheezes  a  bit  more  than  he  did  in  Mary's  time,  poor  soul, 
but  he  still  hangs  on.  And  I  think  he  will  as  long  as  he 
makes  his  mind  up  to  it.  I  never  saw  such  a  feller  for  makin' 
up  his  mind." 

"  I  should  want  to  give  in,  if  I  was  like  that." 

'*  Oh,  I  daresay  he  does.  But  his  people  think  he  ought 
to  hang  on  as  long  as  he  can  to  shut  Algernon  out.  They 
want  him  to  marry  again  as  Mary  didn't  come  off.  I'm 
not  sure  that  that's  not  what  has  brought  him  here  now. 
I  know  one  of  our  little  fillies  was  suggested,  and  it  struck 
me  it  would  do  you  no  harm,  Edmund,  eh  ?  She  won't  have 
to  wait  long  to  be  a  dowager,  because  I'll  lay  a  thousand 
to  five  that  as  soon  as  the  poor  devil  gets  what  he  wants  he 
will  hand  in  his  checks.  It  is  a  miracle  how  he  keeps  on. 
It  wouldn't  take  many  of  those  bad  coughings  and  hemor- 
rhages to  settle  me.  Personally,  I  think  it  is  rotten  of  his 
people  to  trouble  the  poor  devil.  Why  can't  they  give 
him  leave  to  go  and  be  at  peace  ?  But  they  are  all  dead 
set  against  Algernon  now.  They  won't  have  him  at  any 
price ;    and  they  tell  me  this  Mrs.  Dingley  is  a  beauty." 

Broke  was  lost  in  deep  thought  for  a  minute,  and  then 
he  said:  "I — ah — don't  fancy  a  fellow  like  that  for  one  of 
our  girls.  It  seems  a  bit  unnatural  to  me.  Does  Jane 
know  ?  " 

"  She  guesses  all  right.  Catch  Jane  missin'  a  chance. 
She's  spoken  to  me  once  or  twice  about  Algernon's  business, 
and  the  Raynes'  affairs  generally.  Real  fly  is  the  name 
for  her  ;  if  I  was  as  fly  as  our  Jane  I  should  turn  my  talents 

337  Y 


BROKE    OF    COVENDEN 

to  the  Turf  and  make  a  bit.  Look  at  her  making  love  to 
him  now,  Edmund." 

Mrs,  Broke  was  even  yet  dilating  to  the  Duke  of  Wim- 
bledon on  the  sacred  character  of  duty.  That  hollow- 
cheeked  and  weary-eyed  knight  of  the  Garter  nodded  his 
head  slowly  in  response,  at  automatic  intervals.  Plainly 
he  took  the  responsibilities,  the  enjoyment  of  our  mundane 
existence  cast  upon  him  with  a  becoming  seriousness. 
They  appeared  to  begin  and  end  in  a  doing  of  the  right 
thing.  Every  act  he  performed  was  marked  out  according 
to  that  convention.  The  hypercritical  young  gentleman 
who  sat  beside  him,  in  whose  case  there  was  the  excuse  of 
the  hard  necessity,  could  not  have  been  more  pedantically 
correct  in  every  detail  of  his  demeanour.  His  anxiety  to 
do  the  right  thing  was  stamped  on  every  line,  and  they  were 
many,  of  his  earnest  countenance.  His  nervous  hands 
hovered  about  the  table-cloth  perpetually  lest  anybody 
should  be  in  need  of  salt.  When-  Philippa  asked  him  to 
pass  the  butter  he  quite  overwhelmed  her  with  apologies 
because  he  had  failed  to  observe  she  was  in  need  of  it.  His 
manner  was  a  scrupulous  compliment  to  everybody  present. 
His  desire  to  give  satisfaction  was  so  immense.  His  counte- 
nance might  be  stamped  with  every  sign  of  affliction,  but 
it  was  far  from  being  reflected  in  his  animated  courtesy. 
He  was  hat  in  hand  to  all.  He  bent  his  narrow  back  to 
everybody,  as  though  his  mission  in  life  was  to  propitiate 
each  individual  person  with  whom  he  came  into  contact. 

After  having  discussed  with  his  hostess  for  ten  minutes 
the  sacred  character  of  duty,  it  was  in  the  pursuit  of  this 
scheme  of  conduct  that  he  turned  to  the  young  man  by 
his  side,  with  whom  he  had  not  as  yet  exchanged  a  word. 

"  Awfully  nice  day,"  he  said,  in  his  wheeziest  whisper. 

"  U — u — m — m  ?  " 

Our  young  friend  made  a  buzz  like  a  bee  humming.  He 
had  heard  what  his  neighbour  had  said  perfectly  well,  but 
he  was  not  in  the  mood  to  engage  in  a  discussion  of  the 
weather  with  the  local  curate. 

"  Awfully  nice  day,"  his  neighbour  repeated  gently. 

"  Nice  day.     Very." 

*'  Do  you  plav  golf  ?  " 

"  Do  1  play  goh'  ?  No.     Why  should  I  ?  Do  you  ?  " 


TWO    MATRIMONIAL   RICHMONDS 

"  No,  I  do  not." 

"  Hunt  ?  " 

"  No,  I  do  not." 

"  Shoot  ?  " 

"No,  I  do  not." 

"  Yacht  ?  " 

••  No,  I  do  not." 

"  Cricket  ?  " 

*'  No,  I  do  not." 

"  Anything  you  do  do  ?  Ping-pong,  barred  of  course." 

"  I  like  a  game  of  patience." 

"  You  like  a  game  of  patience.  Yes,  I  daresay  you  would. 
Here  !  " 

Our  j'oung  friend  turned  his  back  abruptly  on  his  neigh- 
bour, and  beckoned  to  the  butler,  who  approached  at  a 
majestic  leisure. 

"  Get  me  another  glass  of  beer,  will  you." 

The  young-old  man  turned  his  anxious  face  to  the  butler. 

"  Do  you  happen,"  he  said,  ingratiatingly,  "  to  have 
brown  stout  on  draught  ?  " 

' '  We  have  brown  stout,  your  grace,  on  draught,  or  we  have 
it  bottled,"  said  the  butler  with  solemn  courtliness. 

"  Do  you  mind  getting  me  a  pint  of  draught  ?  " 

The  butler  bowed. 

"  And  do  you  mind  bringing  it  in  a  jug,  with  a  bit  of 
froth.     I  like  a  bit  of  froth." 

"  Thank  you,  your  grace." 

Your  grace  !  What  did  the  old  fool  mean  ?  our  friend 
asked  of  himself.  This  was  no  duke,  and  he  was  too  young 
to  be  an  archbishop.  But,  your  grace  !  If  this  was  a  duke, 
he  was  the  rummest  duke  he  had  ever  seen,  or  heard  of, 
or  read  of.  What  price  a  duke  who  played  patience  and 
drank  draught  stout  ?  However,  he  was  among  rum  people. 
They  had  the  reputation  of  being  swells  in  their  way.  There 
was  just  an  outside  sporting  chance  that  he  might  not  be 
the  local  curate  after  all.  It  would  be  wise  to  make  sure. 
For  that  purpose  he  turned  to  the  daughter  of  the  house, 
who  sat  at  his  right  hand. 

"  I  say,"  he  said,  in  a  whisper,  "  who  is  the  sportsman 
on  my  left  ?  " 

"  The  Duke  of  Wimbledon,"  said  Delia. 

339 


BROKE    OF    COVENDEN 

Well,  he  was  damned  !  A  pretty  low  down  trick  to  play 
on  a  fellow,  to  dump  a  real  live  duke  down  at  his  side,  and 
never  to  let  him  know.  Here  was  a  pretty  go  ;  he  must 
make  a  dash  for  it  while  there  was  still  a  chance.  Lunch 
was  getting  on.     He  gave  the  noble  valetudinarian  a  nudge. 

"  I  say  duke,  I  suppose  you  would  know  my  great  friend 
Lord  Alfred  Shovehalfpenny,  eldest  son,  you  know,  of  the 
Earl  of  Coddam." 

Yes,  the  duke  had  the  felicity  of  knowing  Shovehalf- 
penny, also  his  father.  Lord  Coddam.  That  was  luck. 
He  had  got  off  the  mark  with  a  flying  start.  He  would 
now  proceed  to  make  the  pace  a  cracker.  Did  he  know 
Lord  Huffey  ?  Yes,  the  duke  knew  Huffey.  With  that 
further  success  our  friend  grew  a  little  uplifted.  He  settled 
down  to  serious  work,  squared  his  elbows,  and  cornered  his 
man.     And  to  think  they  had  never  told  him  ! 

Huffey,  Huffey's  place,  and  Huffey's  people  were  passed 
under  review  for  the  delectation  of  the  weary  young-old 
man,  who  listened  with  rapt  attention  and  nodded  his  head, 
and  said  "  yes  !  "  and  "  oh,  yes  !  "  at  all  the  right  and 
reasonable  intervals,  although  he  hardly  knew  Huffey 
from  Adam,  had  not  the  least  interest  in  Huffey,  and  had 
seen  Huffey  only  once  in  his  life. 

Our  young  gentleman  gave  him  no  quarter  however. 
From  Huffey  he  passed  to  Puffey,  another  common  friend, 
and  then  to  Duffey  and  then  to  Snuffey,  and  then  to  Tuffey, 
and  so  on,  and  so  on,  quite  a  considerable  distance  into  the 
devious  branches  of  Toffeedom,  that  mighty  order.  The 
meek  and  inoffensive  victim,  who  had  never  so  much  as 
harmed  a  fly  in  all  the  thirty-five  years  of  his  life,  bore  the 
remorseless  Mr.  Breffit  the  younger  with  the  stoicism  bred 
of  constant  affliction.  He  listened  with  his  ears  bent  slightly 
forward  that  he  might  not  miss  a  word,  and  his  thin  chest 
and  pale  blue  chin  protruded  in  polite  earnestness  towards 
his  pitiless  tormentor.  It  was  an  angelic  patience. 
Balzac,  when  he  fashioned  his  pathetic  phrase  about  genius, 
might  with  equal  force  have  rendered  it,  "  La  patience 
anijelique  des  dues." 

Secure  in  the  impression  he  was  creating — it  was  plain 
for  all  to  see  that  his  auditor  was  ravished  by  the  brilliancy 
of  his  talk — Mr.  Breffit  rose  in  the  intoxication  of  success 

340 


TWO    MATRIMONIAL    RICHMONDS 

to  higher  flights.  Presently,  to  the  immense  satisfaction 
of  himself,  he  had  claimed  an  intimate  acquaintance  with 
half  the  peerage.  It  was  as  good  as  reading  the  celebrated 
work  of  Sir  Horatio  Hare.  He  drew  the  line,  however,  at 
the  brewing  department,  and  the  Jewish  department, 
leaving  out  the  family  of  Rothschild,  in  whose  favour  he 
was  able  to  make  an  exception,  as  they  were  the  friends 
of  Royalty.  Nearly  all  the  rest  were  his  closest  friends. 
Would  that  he  could  have  said  they  were  his  second  cousins 
in  the  words  of  the  immortal  Sir  Horatio  !  But  at  least  they 
could  never  do  enough  for  him,  and  their  houses  were  always 
at  his  disposal.  When  the  time  came  to  leave  the  table, 
oblivious  of  everything,  and  most  of  all  of  the  particular 
mission  that  had  brought  him  there,  our  young  friend  linked 
his  arm  through  his  companion's,  for  all  the  world  as  though 
he  had  known  the  dear  delicate  fellow  all  his  life,  indeed, 
as  though  they  had  been  boj^s  together. 

His  success  was  complete.  It  was  the  mightiest  con- 
quest he  had  ever  made  ;  it  was  the  biggest  fish  he  had  ever 
landed.  And  to  think  they  had  not  had  the  common  de- 
cency to  tell  him  at  the  start  !  If  he  had  not  had  marvellous 
tact  he  might  never  have  recovered  from  that  bad  begin- 
ning. But  what  a  magic,  what  a  glamour  there  was  in 
Lord  Alfred  Shovehalfpenny  and  his  father,  the  Earl  of 
Coddam  !  They  had  never  failed  to  pull  him  through. 
Drunk  with  what  he  had  done  already,  he  felt  he  must  go 
on  and  on,  ever  on  and  on.  He  would  play  for  all  he  was 
worth.  With  a  thrill  of  satisfaction  he  bethought  him 
of  his  little  place.  His  old  father,  shocking  old  bounder  as 
he  was,  was  a  wise  old  bird.  He  knew  a  thing  or  two.  He 
showed  a  true  instinct  when  he  piurchased  Tufton.  This 
was  where  his  little  place  came  in. 

"  You  must  come  and  see  me  at  Tufton  you  know,  duke. 
You  must  really.     I  can't  take  a  refusal." 

The  nervous  lath  of  veins  and  bones  he  still  retained  in 
his  hand  quivered  and  seemed  almost  to  struggle  a  weak 
instant  in  the  grasp  of  our  young  friend. 

"  Tufton,"  he  murmured,  dreamily.  "  You  live  at 
Tufton  ?  " 

"  Don't  you  know  '  "  said  Mr.  Breffit,  in  a  tone  of  delicate 
expostulation.     "  It  is  mine  now.     I  took  it  off  the  hands 

341 


BROKE    OF    COVENDEN 

of  one  of  my  oldest  friends,  Lord  Algernon  Raynes.  You 
know  poor  old  Algy,  of  course.  Everybody  knows  poor  old 
Algy.  You  must  have  heard,  everybody's  heard,  of  what  a 
frightful  mucker  the  poor  old  fellow  came  over  that  dashing 
little  widow  at  Monte  Carlo.  His  people  are  quite  cut  up, 
poor  devils.  It  is  awfully  rough  for  them  of  course,  as 
they  are  not  overburdened  with  the  goods  of  this  world  in 
that  family,  as  I  daresay  you  know.  There  is  no  saying 
what  they  would  have  done  had  not  a  friend  of  the  family 
come  forward  in  the  nick  of  time  to  take  Tufton  oft  their 
hands." 

His  companion  turned  half  round  to  take  a  better  look 
at  our  young  friend. 

"  You  have  bought  Tufton,"  he  said.  "  Is  your  name 
Breffit  may  I  ask  ?  " 

There  was  a  degree  of  embarrassment  visible  in  the  man- 
ner of  the  head  of  the  Raynes  family  when  he  put  this 
question,  but  at  least  it  was  no  greater  than  that  with 
which  Mr.  Breffit  answered  it. 

"  Ye — es,"  he  said  irresolutely.  "  Hamilton  Breffit  is 
my  name." 

A  strange  weary  smile  flickered  an  instant  in  the  pale 
face  of  his  victim. 

"It  was  good  of  you  to  come  to  our  aid,"  he  said  earn- 
estly. "  I  am  sure  we  are  deeply  sensible  of  your  father's 
kindness.  We  might  have  had  it  on  our  hands  a  long  time 
if  he  had  not  made  his  offer.  I  daresay,  if  we  could  have 
afforded  to  wait  we  might  have  got  three  times  as  much 
for  it  as  we  sold  it  for,  but  nevertheless  I  am  sure  we  are 
grateful  to  3'our  father  for  his  promptness." 

A  tremendous  pang  had  already  taken  our  young  friend 
somewhere  behind  at  the  back  of  his  brain.  Ye  gods, 
what  a  purler  !  He  was  completel}'  knocked  out.  To 
think  when  he  made  his  grab  at  the  bait,  to  think  when  he 
made  his  effort  and  went  in  to  win,  that  he  had  not  had  the 
sense  to  pause  and  remember  that  the  Duke  of  Wimbledon 
was  a  Raynes  !  Why,  oh,  why  had  he  not  left  him  at  the 
local  curate  ? 

The  feeling,  the  one  most  dreaded,  the  one  most  avoided, 
by  elegant  Englishmen  of  the  type  of  our  young  friend, 
the  feeling  that  he  "  had  completely  given  himself  away," 

342 


TWO    MATRIMONIAL    RICHMONDS 

had  taken  him  by  the  throat.  While  he  was  writhing  in 
its  clutch  the  noble  valetudinarian  gathered  enough  of 
initiative  very  gently  to  disengage  his  arm.  Before  our 
young  friend  had  recovered  a  sufficient  measure  of  his  self- 
possession  he  made  good  his  escape  into  the  tenderer  hands 
of  the  awaiting  Mrs.  Broke  which  were  outstretched  to 
receive  him. 

By  the  time  our  somewhat  crestfallen  young  friend  had 
been  able  to  pull  himself  a  little  together,  he  made  straight 
for  his  hostess. 

"  I  must  be  going,"  he  said.  "  Thank  you  very  much 
for  a  charming  lunch." 

"  Must  you  go  ?  Can't  you  stay  ?  " 

Mrs.  Broke  gave  our  young  friend  her  hand  with  no 
absence  of  alacrity.  It  was  not  convenient  to  pay  the 
requisite  amount  of  attention  to  him  just  then.  Higher 
game  had  appeared  upon  the  scene. 

As  our  young  friend  swung  down  the  drive  at  a  furious 
pace,  he  swore  a  great  oath  that  all  the  king's  horses  and 
aii  the  king's  men  should  not  induce  him  to  set  foot  in  that 
house  again. 


343 


CHAPTER  XXVII 
Opportunities  for  a  little  Moral  Teaching 

ONE  morning  Mrs.  Broke  summoned  Delia  to  her 
room.  A  large  basket  laden  with  flowers  was  on 
the  table. 

"  I  want  you  to  take  this  to  the  cottage  on  the  hill. 
Be  careful.     There  are  eggs  underneath." 

An  implicit  obedience  being  as  much  an  instinct  with 
Delia  as  with  her  sisters,  she  did  not  pause  to  allow  questions 
to  surge  on  her  lips.     She  took  the  basket  and  set  forth. 

"  That  child  looks  wretchedly  worn  and  ill  "  was  her 
mother's  comment  as  she  closed  the  door.  "  It  seems  as 
though  this  little  hothouse  of  a  world  of  ours  is  getting  too 
high  a  temperature." 

To  Delia  this  command  of  her  mother's  seemed  directly 
to  break  down  the  barrier  that  had  been  erected  between 
them  and  the  dwellers  in  that  sinister  httle  cottage.  But 
she  would  have  been  much  easier  in  her  mind  had  the 
command  been  her  father's  ;  although  the  sensation  para- 
mount in  her  at  first  was  that  of  her  mighty  curiosity.  She 
was  craving  to  look  upon  the  creature  who  had  wrought 
the  ruin  of  her  brother,  as  does  a  child  to  look  upon  some 
fearsome  animal  in  a  zoological  garden.  And  there  was 
a  similar  idea  of  the  peril.  If  she  approached  too  closely 
it  might  turn  and  rend  her,  for  no  doubt  it  was  very  fierce. 

Still  the  dim  sense  she  had  that  in  obeying  her  mother 
she  was  disobeying  her  father  rendered  her  unhappy  as 
she  took  her  way.  She  could  penetrate  far  enough  into 
the  minds  of  her  parents  dimly  to  apprehend  that  they 
did  not  always  see  eye  to  eye  ;  and  that  in  the  present 

344 


A    LITTLE    MOI^L   TEACHING 

diverseness  of  their  points  of  view  to  serve  one  might  be 
to  be  disloyal  to  the  other.  For  that  reason  she  devoutly 
hoped  she  would  not  meet  her  father  now.  She  did  not 
take  the  short  way,  therefore,  across  the  home  farm,  so 
great  was  the  danger  of  meeting  him  in  that  vicinity,  but 
went  the  longer  road,  a  difference  of  half  a  mile. 

She  had  feelings  of  guilt  when  she  found  herself  in  sight 
of  the  cottage  with  no  longer  the  acute  fear  of  detection. 
Indeed,  she  felt  in  her  heart  she  had  been  disloyal  to  her 
father,  and  was  not  sure  as  she  lifted  the  latch  of  the  cottage 
gate  that  she  would  not  have  preferred  to  be  found  out. 
She  was  bitterly  angry  with  herself  for  having  walked  the' 
longest  way  to  avoid  him.  However,  hardly  had  she  set 
foot  on  the  small  path,  skirted  with  flowers  on  either  side, 
which  led  to  the  abode  of  Billy's  wife,  when  she  was  startled 
by  the  tones  of  a  man  coming  through  the  open  door. 
Before  she  could  guess  to  whom  they  might  belong  a 
familiar  and  beloved  form  filled  the  doorway.  It  was 
Billy. 

At  the  mere  sight  of  him,  with  the  bright  sun  formmg  a 
halo  round  his  fair  head,  all  nicely-calculated  forms  of 
conduct  vanished. 

"  Hallo,  it  is  little  Del ! "  he  cried  with  the  great  shout 
of  a  boy.  '  Little  Del  has  come  to  see  us.  You  dear  kid  : 
how  ripping  of  you  !  " 

He  made  the  same  rude  proprietary  grab  at  her  as  when 
he  used  to  romp  with  them  of  old.  With  the  same  vigor- 
ous dexterity  he  caught  her  with  one  hand,  and  with  the 
other  tore  the  basket  from  her. 

"  They  are  eggs,"  she  had  the  presence  of  mind  to  gasp. 

"  You  dear  kid  !  " 

He  slapped  her  cheek  in  a  proud  manner  of  ownership, 
and  planted  a  lusty  kiss  upon  it. 

Delia  had  to  make  the  effort  to  keep  the  tears  from 
showing  in  her  eyes.  He  had  not  changed  in  the  least. 
Billy  was  Billy  still :  the  same  free-hearted,  laughing, 
fearless,  careless,  insolently  tender  brother  who  loved  them 
every  one  and  whom  every  one  of  them  loved  too  ;  the 
brother  who  had  only  to  walk  in  moist  earth  for  his  sisters 
to  fall  upon  their  knees  in  adoration  of  his  footprints.  He 
was  the  same  brother  who  had  rolled  them  in  hay  a  thou- 

345 


BROKE    OF    COVENDEN 

sand  times ;  who  had  chased  them  round  the  buildings  of 
the  farm  ;  who  had  made  them  hide  from  him  in  barns  and 
corn  cribs,  lofts  and  mangers,  and  the  strangest  places  ; 
who  had  shown  them  a  lead  over  the  stiffest  fences,  and 
whose  line  they  were  prepared  to  follow  to  the  end  of  the 
world,  and  through  eternity.  The  old  magic  was  in  him 
still  of  making  them  laugh  from  their  very  hearts,  of  kind- 
ling a  new  light  in  their  eyes. 

"  Come  on  in,"  he  said,  squeezing  her  small  figure,  and 
half  carrying,  half  dragging  her  through  the  door  of  the 
cottage,  exactly  in  the  manner  that  he  used  to  convey 
them  as  his  prisoners  two  at  a  time  in  those  strong  arms 
of  old.  "  My  old  little  girl  must  see  mv  new  little  girl, 
eh  ?  " 

In  this  uncompromising  fashion  the  rather  frightened, 
if  joyously  excited,  Delia  was  conducted  to  view  the  fierce 
creature. 

"  Here  she  is,"  cried  Billy.  "  Isn't  she  a  little  beauty  ? 
Kiss  her,  Del.  and  tell  her  that  she  is." 

The  two  young  creatures  met  one  another  irresolutely 
with  their  eyes.  They  were  both  afraid,  both  filled  with 
wonder  and  bewilderment.  They  were  as  shy  and  dis- 
trustful as  two  strange  kittens  on  the  same  hearthrug. 
But  Alice  gave  back  first.  She  was  even  timider  than 
Delia  ;  and  she  was  soon  shrinking  from  the  honest  search- 
ing gaze  of  Bill3''s  sister,  who  was  looking  for  a  trace  of  the 
horrid  monster  she  had  expected  to  discover.  The  creature 
before  her  was  nothing  more  formidable  than  a  child, 
pecuharly  fragile,  peculiarly  fair.  A  blush  spread  over 
AHce  ;  suddenly  her  eyes  fell,  and  at  that  moment  she 
could  not  have  held  them  up  again  to  save  her  life.  But 
almost  directly  an  emotion  conquered  Delia.  She  ran 
forward  and  clutched  the  shrinking  Alice  to  her  arms  with 
a  little  cry.  A  kiss  mingled  with  tears  she  yielded  to  the 
delicate  scarlet  face. 

The  old  woman,  the  aunt,  stood  in  the  background  of 
the  wall  to  watch  in  the  extremity  of  awe.  There  was 
a  measure  of  reticence  in  Billy  too.  But  there  was  also 
gratitude.  Delia's  act,  the  more  spontaneous  because 
half  reluctant,  made  its  appeal.  And  the  sight  of  his 
5"oung  wife  and  his  young  sister  in  one  another's  arms 

346 


A   LITTLE    MORAL   TEACHING 

seemed  to  emphasise  the  debt  he  owed  his  mother.  He 
guessed  it  was  by  her  agency  that  Deha  was  there. 

Without  his  mother  he  saw  that  things  might  have  gone 
much  harder  with  Alice.  It  was  she  who  had  installed 
her  in  that  place.  Also  she  had  visited  her  once  or  twice, 
he  gathered ;  had  furnished  the  cottage ;  had  given  her  a 
little  money,  and  had  made  her  sundry  small  gifts.  Also 
she  had  brought  Maud  Wayling  there,  and,  afterwards, 
little  as  such  a  thing  was  to  have  been  expected  of  her, 
Maud  had  come  there  once  or  twice  of  her  own  accord. 
From  the  eager  inquiries  that  he  made  he  learned  that  his 
mother  and  Miss  Wayling  had  been  more  than  kind.  But 
with  all  his  wish  to  do  so,  he  could  not  learn  that  one  of 
his  sisters  had  taken  the  least  interest  in  his  wife.  He  felt 
that  more  keenly  than  he  cared  to  own.  Not  once  had 
they  been  to  the  cottage.  The  only  solace  that  fact  could 
afford  was  that  they  were  acting  unmistakably  under  the 
orders  of  their  father. 

The  letter  he  had  received  from  his  father  he  had  half 
expected.  His  instincts  told  him  the  sort  of  man  his 
father  was  should  it  be  your  misfortune  to  cross  him  on  a 
point  of  that  sort.  For  all  practical  purposes  it  was  all  up 
with  him.  He  was  about  done  for  as  far  as  England  was 
concerned.  At  any  rate  his  father  had  done  for  him  in  the 
Blues.  He  had  already  resigned  his  commission,  and 
there  was  just  that  bit  of  perverse  pride  about  him  that 
prevented  his  trying  to  get  an  exchange  into  a  less  expen- 
sive branch  of  the  Service.  Besides,  his  means  would  not 
permit  him  to  follow  a  military  calling  and  to  keep  a  wife 
as  well.  Two  hundred  pounds  a  year !  A  dinner  or  two 
at  the  Carlton,  and  a  supper  or  two  at  the  Savoy,  and 
where  was  that  ?  No  man  in  the  world  could  exist  decently 
on  two  hundred  a  year,  let  alone  keep  a  wife  on  it.  It 
was  plain  that  his  father  knew  there  was  no  meat  on  that 
bone  when  he  threw  it  at  him. 

Now  he  had  a  little  scheme.  He  had  already  made  up 
his  mind  that  the  best  thing  he  could  do  was  to  go  out  to 
the  colonies  and  try  and  earn  an  honest  penny.  He 
could  not  stand  beggary  in  England,  probably  with  all  his 
former  friends  pointing  a  finger  at  him,  and  giving  him  the 
cold  shoulder.     No ;  South  Africa  was  the  place,  so  he  had 

347 


BROKE   OF    COVENDEN 

heard.  There  was  a  big  future  for  that  country.  You 
had  only  to  look  at  the  crop  of  millionaires  it  raised  annu- 
ally. You  did  hear  wonderful  stories  of  what  men  as 
poor  as  himself  had  done  out  there.  Look  at  that  chap 
Rhodes.  If  only  he  could  have  a  bit  of  luck  at  the  start 
like  those  other  chaps  had  had  ! 

If  only  he  could  return  in  a  year  or  two  and  dispense 
with  his  father's  bounty  altogether !  That  was  where 
the  shoe  pinched  at  present.  If  he  had  had  anything  at 
all  on  which  to  keep  his  wife  he  would  have  gone  barefoot 
rather  than  accept  a  penny !  His  polo  ponies  and 
his  kit  had  gone  to  cover  what  he  owed,  and  you  could 
hardly  say  that  they  had  fulfilled  their  mission.  There 
was  still  his  tailor,  wretched  ruffian.  It  made  him  groan 
to  think  he  had  to  take  his  father's  bounty  for  his  little 
girl. 

However,  it  would  not  be  for  long.  He  Wcis  going  to 
sail  for  South  Africa  to-morrow.  His  poor  little  girl  had 
been  dreadfully  cut  up  over  his  plan.  She  could  hardly 
be  got  to  see  things  in  the  same  light  that  he  saw  them 
himself ;  she  was  sure  they  could  exist  without  her  husband 
having  to  go  away  to  foreign  parts  to  seek  money.  To 
her,  poor  little  kid !  two  hundred  pounds  a  year  was 
princely,  especially  with  a  cottage  to  live  in  rent  free. 
But  she  was  brave.  And  her  docility  and  her  devotion 
were  very  great.  His  absence  would  try  her  bitterly  ; 
but  she  was  prepared  to  suffer  if  only  he  who  knew  so  much 
more  about  everything  held  it  wise  and  right.  He  had 
sought  to  comfort  her  with  the  promise  that  if  he  had  the 
least  bit  of  luck  his  first  act  would  be  to  return  for  her  and 
her  aunt. 

To-morrow  he  must  leave  her.  He  was  sure  it  would 
not  be  for  long.  Like  his  mother,  he  had  a  vein  of  cheery 
optimism,  a  resolute  looking  at  the  right  side  of  a  subject 
tliat  had  always  carried  him  through.  And  when  it  was 
necessary  he  too  could  exhibit  a  certain  stoicism  of  spirit, 
after  the  fashion  of  his  race. 

That  Delia  should  have  come  there  that  morning  and 
have  taken  Alice  in  her  arms  gave  him  immense  satis- 
faction. He  had  been  almost  afraid  that  aunt  and  niece 
would  be  left  in  an  alien  country.     Of  course  there  was 

348 


A    L7TTLE    MORAL    TEACHING 

his  mother.  But  he  shared  the  feeUng  of  his  sisters  in 
regard  to  her.  Whatever  she  might  say  or  do  you  were 
never  quite  sure  of  the  dear  old  mummy.  You  never 
quite  knew  when  you  had  her,  what  she  was  up  to,  or  what 
she  would  be  at  next.  She  always  gave  you  a  feeling  that 
she  was  playing  a  little  game  of  her  own,  and  that  you 
were  not  allowed  to  know  precisely  what  it  was. 

"  You  could  not  have  come  at  a  better  time  Del,"  he 
said  to  his  young  sister  in  his  old  frank  way.  "  I  am  going 
away  to-morrow  ;  and  I  want  you  to  look  after  my  little 
girl  a  bit.  Promise  me  you  will,  little  kid.  You  see  she 
might  get  rather  lonely  if  nobody  comes  to  see  her  while  I 
am  away." 

Delia  made  the  promise.  It  was  impossible  to  refuse; 
Even  as  she  made  it  she  knew  it  to  be  an  act  of  disloyalty 
to  her  father,  and  that  wild  horses  would  not  drag  her 
sisters  to  that  cottage  door.  But  the  child  was  powerless. 
As  heretofore,  she  was  completely  the  slave  of  Billy.  And 
his  young  wife  was  very  sweet  and  beautiful. 

When  she  heard  that  her  brother  was  going  to  leave 
England  the  next  day  for  no  purpose  other  than  to  seek 
money,  in  spite  of  all  her  newly-acquired  self-control  the 
tears  welled  up. 

"  Oh  !  "  she  said,  with  a  pang  of  indescribable  over- 
mastering bitterness. 

The  delicate-looking  wife  had  hers  under  a  better  com- 
mand. Not  a  tear  escaped  her,  but  it  seemed  to  Delia 
that  in  her  eyes  was  something  worse.  The  dumb  desola- 
tion in  them  was  to  haunt  her  for  many  a  day. 

"  Oh  Billy  !  How  can  you  go  away  from  her  ?  How 
can  you  leave  her  ?  If  she  were  mine  I  am  sure  I  could  not. 
I  should  want  her  to  stay  with  me  always  and  always." 

"  Don't  talk  like  that,  little  kid."  In  all  her  recollection 
of  him  she  never  remembered  to  have  heard  that  tone. 
"  You  musn't  talk  like  that,  you  know." 

"  I  feel  I  must,"  said  Delia,  with  valiant  simplicity. 
"  Oh  how  can  you,  Billy  !  " 

"  Drop  it  httle  kid  !  "  It  was  almost  as  if  her  simple 
words  had  struck  him.  "  I  hardly  know  how  I  can  myself. 
But  when  you've  got  to  do  a  thing  you've  jolly  weU  got 
to  do  it,  whether  you  can  or  you  can't." 

349 


BROKE    OF    COVENDEN 

By  an  effort  which  afflicted  his  sister  as  soon  as  she 
detected  it,  he  suddenly  re-assumed  his  laughing,  careless 
ease. 

"  You  young  beggar.  What  do  you  mean  by  catechising 
me  like  this  ?  What  do  you  mean  by  it,  eh  ?  I  shall  have 
to  box  your  jolly  young  ears,  you  know,  if  you  get  so  coxey. 
But  we  are  getting  quite  a  woman  now,  aren't  we  ?  We 
shall  be  falhng  in  love  next," 

Billy  was  no  observer,  therefore  the  swift  change  his 
light  words  provoked  in  the  face  of  his  young  sister  passed 
without  a  challenge. 

"  Why,  hang  it  all !  "  cried  Billy,  in  the  stress  of  sudden 
recollection,  "  you  haven't  spoken  to  Auntie  yet." 

With  his  cheery  laugh  he  brought  the  old  woman  forward 
from  her  hiding-place  in  the  background  of  the  wall. 
Although  it  was  to  be  supposed  that  Delia  would  hardly 
have  scared  a  butterfly,  Miss  Sparrow  was  very  much 
afraid  of  her,  and  when  dragged  out  of  her  obscurity  her 
nervousness  scarcely  permitted  her  to  speak  a  word, 
although  she  was  able  to  drop  a  curtesy  the  Uke  of  which 
Delia  had  never  seen  before. 

Delia  found  herself  regarding  the  shrinking  face  so  pale 
and  unhappy  and  debased  with  privation,  with  the 
same  wonder  and  irresolution  as  she  had  regarded  Alice. 
And  in  spite  of  their  great  disparity  in  years,  she  became 
as  suddenly  the  prey  of  that  impulse  which  had  caused 
her  to  enfold  the  frail  child  to  her  bosom.  In  the  case  of 
this  old  woman  she  awoke  to  find  that  she  had  done  the 
same  thing. 

"  Will  you  tell  my  mother  and  the  girls  that  I  am  going 
back  to  town  to-night?"  said  Billy,  as  DeHa  prepared  to 
take  her  leave  \vith  the  empty  basket  in  her  hand.  "  Tell 
them  to  come  up  here  this  afternoon.  I  should  like  to 
see  them  before  I  go  ;  there  is  no  saying  when  we  shall 
meet  again.  And  I  had  better  say  good-bye  to  you,  little 
kid,  here  now.  I  always  knew  you  were  a  good  little  sort. 
Not  much  of  you,  eh  ?  but  what  there  is,  is  solid  gold, 
eh,  little  Miss  Muffet  ?  And  now  for  the  very  bestest 
kiss  3'ou  have  got.  What  a  cold  face  you  have  got,  little 
kid.  And  not  so  ros}^  as  it  was  bv  Jove.  You  must  buck 
up,  little  kid.     Mustn'  t  sit  so  hard  at  those  books,  eh  ?     One 


A    LITTLE    MORAL    TEACHING 

more  for  luck ;  and  then  off  with  you — Lord  knows  when 
we  shall  see  one  another  again  !  " 

He  gripped  Delia's  hands  in  his  own,  and  looked  upon 
her  with  all  the  beguiling  fondness  of  his  eyes. 

With  his  last  kiss  upon  her  hps  Delia  hastened  from  him 
into  the  open  air.  The  fear  was  upon  her  that  she  would 
break  down  before  his  beautiful  fragile  wife,  who  was  so 
brave.  She  ran  into  the  sensuous  air  of  May  heavy  and 
languorous  with  the  sun,  and  the  almost  intolerable  music 
of  birds  ;  and  never  dared  to  stay  her  headlong  flight  until 
the  wood  and  the  hill  and  the  little  cottage  nestling  under 
them  were  far  away. 

There  was  a  pitiful  commotion  in  the  child,  but  the 
dread  of  tears  was  past.  They  would  have  been  a  relief 
now,  but  the  power  to  shed  them  had  gone  from  her.  A 
cruel  rigour  had  fastened  on  her  throat ;  her  brain  was 
resolved  into  a  compact  and  definite  substance  in  her  skull. 
It  was  like  a  ball  of  fire.  And  yet  its  matter  was  so  heavy 
that  it  was  like  a  piece  of  clay.  She  even  made  an  effort 
to  cry  now  for  the  sake  of  relief  ;  but  the  attempt  to  do  so 
was  hke  inducing  the  blood  of  her  veins  to  distil  itself 
through  the  glands  of  her  eyes.  Something  of  the  hysterica 
fassio  had  come  upon  her. 

She  went  straight  to  her  mother  with  the  empty  basket 
and  the  tragedy  of  her  face,  and  gave  Billy's  message. 
The  barrier  of  awe  and  distrust  of  her  mother  fell 
down  an  instant  in  the  pitch  of  desperation  while  she  said — 

"  He  is  going  away  from  England  to-morrow.  He  is 
going  to  leave  his  wife  ;  and  it  is  because  of  his  father. 
He  did  not  tell  me  so,  but  I  know  it  is — oh  !  I  know  it  is." 

Mrs.  Broke  regarded  her  youngest  daughter  with  a  per- 
fectly serene  expression.  She  scanned  the  horror  and 
the  sorrow  rendered  so  poignantly  in  the  child's  face  ; 
she  listened  with  an  extraordinary  patience  to  her  wild- 
ness,  and  replied  to  it  at  a  carefully-deliberated  leisure 
with  the  impartial  melancholy  of  a  judge  pronouncing 
sentence. 

"  Yes,  Delia,  it  is  because  of  his  father.  It  must  be  a 
lesson  to  you  all." 

As  she  spoke  these  words,  her  blue  eyes  were  seen  to 
dilate  in  a  blaze  of  meaning,  something  in  the  manner  of 

351 


BROKE    OF    COVENDEN 

that  fabulous  jewel  which  turned  the  hearts  of  all  who 
looked  upon  its  lustre  into  a  block  of  stone.  But  by  now 
the  child  was  in  no  condition  to  heed,  and  the  analogy 
between  her  brother's  case  and  her  own,  which  her  mother 
intended  to  strike  home,  had  not  the  power  to  pierce  her. 

"  It  is  cruel,  it  is  unjust !  "  she  cried,  transfigured  by 
her  grief.  "  Alice  is  so  sweet  and  beautiful  and  good  ! 
It  is  cruel,  it  is  wicked  to  make  her  suffer !  And  Billy 
is  so  brave  and  noble  !     It  is  wicked,  it  is  unjust !  " 

Her  mother  regarded  this  outburst  with  a  tinge  of 
curiosity  not  unmingled  with  astonishment.  Delia  was 
positively  the  last  creature  in  the  world  in  whom  such  an 
ebullition  was  to  be  looked  for.  It  made  an  unwelcome 
precedent  in  the  history  of  her  daughters'  lives  that 
one  of  them  should  appear  before  her  thus.  And  this 
child  too,  the  one  among  them  with  the  least  initiative, 
the  least  force  of  character,  to  appear  before  her  in  this 
state. 

"  Delia,  I  must  ask  you  to  be  silent." 

"  Billy  has  resigned  his  commission,"  the  child  wenton^ 
with  a  dreary  wildness.  "  He  is  giving  up  everything  ; 
he  is  leaving  his  wife.     He  is " 

"  Delia,  you  can  go." 

The  child  could  not  escape  the  dominating  glance,  and 
the  old  terror  of  that  implacable  will  re-asserted  itself. 
It  strangled  the  quick  words  on  her  lips.  With  a  Uttle 
cry  of  horror  she  ran  from  the  room. 


352 


CHAPTER   XXVIII 
Pariah  in  the  name  of  Love 

IT  was  not  until  the  afternoon  that  Delia  was  able  to 
find  her  five  sisters.  They  had  taken  luncheon  at  an 
agricultural  show.  Ultimately  she  found  them  assembled 
in  full  conclave  over  the  tea-cups  in  their  common  room, 
talking  cattle  and  horses.  As  soon  as  she  entered  she 
cried — 

"  Billy  is  at  the  cottage,  and  he  wants  to  see  you  all 
to  say  good-bye.     He  is  going  to  leave  England  to-morrow." 

The  first  glances  her  sisters  directed  to  her  were  of  the 
nature  of  bewilderment :  her  voice  was  so  wild,  her  words 
so  unsteady.  It  was  Joan  who  was  the  first  to  recover  her 
self-possession ;  or,  overcome  perhaps  by  so  momentous  a 
crisis,  they  did  not,  after  their  kind,  trust  themselves  to 
have  thoughts  of  their  own  until  she,  the  one  having 
authority,  their  natural  leader,  had  indicated  the  direc- 
tion in  which  they  must  go. 

Even  Joan  was  seen  to  shiver  a  little,  but  her  mouth  was 
very  stern,  and  her  face  reminded  them  irresistibly  of  their 
father's  at  the  moment  he  had  issued  his  mandate. 

"  You  must  leave  this  room,  Delia,  until  we  have  taken 
tea.     We  cannot  submit  to  disobedience  from  you." 

"  Mother  sent  me,"  said  Delia  defiantly. 

"  You  know  that  father  had  forbidden  us  to  mention  his 
name." 

"  In  his  presence,"  said  Delia  wildly. 

"  We  should  act  when  he  is  absent  just  as  though  he 
were  present.  If  you  have  not  enough  self-respect  to  do 
that,  we  cannot  have  you  here.     Leave  us,  Delia." 

"  I  will  speak  first ;  I  must  speak  first !  Billy  goes 
away  from  England  to-morrow.     He  asks  to  see  you,  and 

353  z 


BROKE    OF    COVENDEN 

if  you  do  not  go  to  him  now,you  may  never  see  him  again." 

Joan  rose,  put  down  her  cup,  opened  the  door,  and  stood 
beside  it. 

"  Delia,"  she  said  in  a  low  voice,  "  I  insist  on  your 
leaving  this  room  ;  and  you  are  not  to  enter  it  again  until 
I  give  you  permission." 

Delia  withdrew.  She  went  up  to  her  bedroom,  but  soon 
the  confinement  of  four  walls  became  intolerable.  The 
feeling  was  upon  her  that  the  world  was  pressing  her  to 
death.  She  must  have  a  freer,  more  spacious  place  in 
which  to  breathe,  in  which  to  think.  Therefore,  bare- 
headed as  she  was,  she  went  downstairs  and  out  of  doors 
into  the  exquisite  freshness  and  peace  of  the  evening. 
Bareheaded,  she  crossed  the  lawn  into  the  meadows 
beyond  cooling  slowly  from  the  heat  of  noon,  their  green 
faces  already  dipt  in  dew.  Cattle  lowed  from  the  streams, 
hedge-crickets  made  their  little  noises,  birds  formed 
their  evening  notes  ;  there  was  the  sound  of  a  thou- 
sand insects  ;  and  over  and  above  the  mild  voices  of  nature 
the  peace  of  a  hundred  thousand  years. 

To  the  child  in  her  unquietness  this  eternal  serenity 
was  touched  with  healing.  The  great  peace  of  God  was 
like  an  opiate  ;  but  not  even  the  majestic  calm  of  a  sunset 
falling  on  green  fields  could  wholly  assuage  the  tumultuous 
sorrow  that  had  overborne  her.  Grief  had  rendered  her 
mute,  but  it  needed  all  her  power  to  prevent  it  from 
welling  up  into  frenzy.  Not  once,  but  many  times, 
had  she  to  conquer  the  desire  to  fling  her  burning  face 
into  the  long  swathes  of  meadow  grass  clad  icily  with  dew. 

What  had  her  brother  done,  and  the  tender  child  he 
loved,  that  all  the  world,  including  those  who  formerly 
had  adored  him,  should  treat  him  as  a  leper  ?  What 
taint  lurked  in  the  sacred  nature  of  their  love,  that  they 
sliould  be  punished  thus  ?  She  framed  the  question  to 
herself — Was  it  a  crime,  the  violation  of  some  secret 
arbitrary  law,  that  one  human  being  should  love  another  ? 

There  was  the  example  of  her  own  case.  She,  in  the 
desire  of  her  spirit,  had  dared  to  love,  and  how  bitterly, 
now  relentlessly  had  the  act  been  visited  upon  her  !  Now 
was  she  condemned  to  a  perpetual  hungering  torment  that 
nothing  could  appease,  a  perpetual  deprecation  of  self  that 

354 


PARIAH    IN    THE    NAME    OF    LOVE 

nothing  could  mitigate.  And  even  could  she,  like  her 
brother,  have  brought  her  cravings  to  their  consummation, 
she  sa.w  the  price  at  which  it  would  have  been  obtained. 
His  fate  would  have  been  hers.  The  scorn,  the  reproaches 
of  those  whom  she  held  dear  would  have  fallen  with  the 
same  heaviness  upon  her. 

A  httle  wistfully  she  remembered  the  bravery  and  the 
strength  of  this  beloved  brother.  What  a  great  heart  he 
had  in  adversity  !  Why  was  she  incapable  of  that  un- 
daunted fortitude  ?  Ah  !  but  then  the  requital  of  love  was 
his.  He  had  the  exquisite  co-operation  and  stimulus  of 
passion  to  bear  him  onwards,  the  entrancing  sense  of  two* 
made  one  and  walking  in  the  perfect  way.  Well 
might  he  hold  up  his  head  and  splendidly  endure  1 
She,  pitiful,  insignificant  as  she  was,  had  not  the 
force  to  evoke  the  immortal  welding  flame  in  the  nature  of 
another.  She  could  never  be  fortified  with  the  supreme 
exaltation  of  completeness.  Her  pangs  had  no  resources  to 
assuage  them,  no  sanctified  bread  on  which  to  grow 
appeased.  Her  love  must  be  fed,  must  be  kept  alive 
wholly  upon  the  blood  of  her  own  spirit.  This  love  of 
hers  was  a  monster  that  waxed  upon  the  precious  fluid  of 
her  veins,  and  with  its  inordinate  demands  starved  her 
young  nature  into  shadow  and  paleness. 

Her  wandering  feet  strajed  far  across  the  fields  in 
the  direction  in  which  the  cottage  lay.  The  moment  she 
awoke  to  its  nearness  she  turned  and  went  back.  In- 
tensely she  longed  to  look  upon  that  beloved  brother  again  ; 
intensely  she  longed  to  derive  an  instant's  sustenance  from 
one  final  pressure  of  those  arms.  But  she  did  not  dare. 
Only  a  miracle  had  saved  her  from  humiliation  in  their 
parting  of  that  morning.  It  would  shatter  her  to  look 
upon  him  again.  They  were  a  pair  of  outcasts.  The 
hands  of  those  they  revered,  the  hands  that  had  nurtured 
them,  were  uplifted  against  them  now.  They  were  pariah 
in  the  name  of  love. 

Thus  she  turned  from  the  cottage,  and,  in  utter  self- 
abandonment,  bent  her  steps  the  other  way.  Chance  took 
her  in  the  direction  of  that  ruin,  from  whose  crazy  heights 
she  had  been  plucked  by  the  arms  of  one  when  the  jaws 
of  death  yearned  to  take  her  in. 

355 


BROKE    OF    COVEN  DEN 

Hour  after  hour  since  that  April  afternoon  had  she  put 
this  question  to  herself  :  Why,  if  she  had  no  existence  for 
him  ;  why,  if  she  was  no  more  to  him  than  a  stone,  or  a 
bit  of  earth,  or  a  chip  of  a  tree — why  had  he  risked,  wan- 
tonly, his  so-precious  life  for  hers  ?  Surely  he,  whose  life 
was  developed  with  such  a  marvellous  rarity,  would  have 
had  too  high  a  sense  of  the  duty  of  custodianship  of  a  thing 
so  exquisite  imposed  upon  him,  to  endanger  it  for  a  whim. 
And  yet  how  much  more  merciful  it  would  have  been  to 
let  her  fall  stark  upon  the  earth  and  perish.  Could  he  but 
have  known  to  what  he  was  condemning  her,  he  would 
surely  have  allowed  her  to  die. 

Perhaps  it  was  not  chance,  after  all,  that  was  leading 
her  to  that  hallowed  but  intolerable  scene.  Or  chance 
may  be  only  a  name  for  a  subtle  concatenation  of  agencies 
all  working  in  secret  to  one  end.  She  was  going  to  the 
ruin  in  an  instinctive,  involuntary  manner  ;  and  yet  who 
shall  say  she  was  not  aware  of  what  she  did  ?  The  dizzy 
heights  that  rose  there  gauntly  in  the  dusk  were  the  only 
objects  to  which  life  now  attached  a  meaning.  They  filled  her 
eyes,  and  through  the  mists  of  the  evening  beckoned  her  to  go 
and  receive  the  consolation  they  alone  could  bestow.  And 
in  the  weary  spirit  there  was  a  yearning,"  vague,  irrational, 
almost  too  impalpable  to  be  expressed.  It  was  a  desire  to 
lay  her  throbbing  temples  on  cold  stone.  There  may  have 
been  a  suggestion  of  the  eternal  quietness,  of  the  ultimate 
elixir  for  every  living  thing  when  it  lays  down  the  burden 
at  last  that  long  ago  has  grown  too  heavy  to  carry,  in  those 
impassive  upright  walls  cov^ered  with  ivy  and  peace  and 
years,  on  which  poor  old  Time  himself  is  allowed  to  rest 
like  one  who  is  tired.  And  again,  were  they  not  too  inex- 
pressibly the  sepulchre  of  the  unfulfilled  ?  They  were  the 
cloisters  of  recollection.  Wlien  we  feel  we  can  look  forward  no 
more,  our  eyes  turn  inward  to  confront  the  spectres  of  our 
hopes.  When  the  future,  the  fairer,  the  more  radiant  part 
of  us  becomes  a  tomb,  the  only  beatitude  that  is  left  to  us 
is  in  the  limbo  of  the  never-was. 

The  sun  had  vanished  ;  the  wonderful  evening  of  the 
early  summer  was  rapidly  deepening  to  dusk.  The  dew 
had  come  npon  the  fields  :  it  hung  before  her  as  she  walked 
a  pale  faint  curtain,  cnfoldinc:  hedge  and  pasture,  or  a  cold 

356 


PARIAH    IN    THE    NAME   OF   LOVE 

white  pall.  A  far-off  star  or  two  had  Ut  their  candles  in 
the  sky.  The  little  chili  noon  was  come  already  into 
heaven.  The  distant  winds  of  night  were  already  to  be 
heard  walking  in  the  valleys  like  unquiet  spirits.  There 
was  hardly  an  ember  of  daylight  left  when  she  climbed  up 
the  familiar  hill  into  the  shadow  of  the  ruin.  The  deep 
reflection  that  it  cast  rendered  it  all  but  invisible  ;  while 
too  much  was  she  wounded  with  intolerable  memories 
to  discern  a  vague  mass,  a  something  dark  outlined  in 
mirk  against  a  wall  of  ivy.  ' 

In  her  obsession  she  approached  within  a  few  yards  of 
it,  and,  bareheaded  as  she  was,  pressed  her  aching  hair 
against  the  ruin.  The  first  touch  of  the  cold  stone  brought 
relief.  The  tears  burst  out  of  her  heart.  In  the  first 
ecstasy  of  feehng  them  flow  once  again  she  surrendered 
herself  to  a  strange  orgy  of  passion,  and  craved  that  she 
might  weep  to  death.  Presently  her  sense  of  oblivion  was 
invaded  by  a  voice  at  her  side.  It  was  as  though  experience 
was  repeating  itself.  It  was  as  if  some  pregnant  incident 
of  an  existence  in  some  far-off  aeon,  too  remote  for  the 
senses  to  accept,  was  seeking  for  recognition.  It  was  too 
distant  even  to  have  significance.  To  DeHa  the  voice  at 
her  side  was  the  faint  voice  of  a  phantom  floating  among 
the  winds  of  the  glebe. 

"  Alas  !  alas  !  "  said  the  voice. 

By  now  there  was  some  eerie  quality  in  it  that  seemed 
to  arrest  the  motions  of  her  heart.  She  peered  round 
wildly,  and  was  able  to  discern  the  dim,  yet  luminous, 
outlines  of  a  face  she  had  never  looked  to  see  again.  She 
uttered  a  cry  like  a  little  hunted  animal.  The  next  instant 
'  she  was  encompassed  strongly,  with  the  tip  of  her  nose,  the 
firm  line  of  her  lips,  and  the  point  of  her  chin  all  huddled 
together  against  something  breathing  and  respon- 
sive. 

She  was  content  to  close  her  eyes  and  lie  there  captive. 
Her  heart  had  resumed  its  motions,  but  now  it  pattered 
quick  and  little,  like  a  bird's  when,  after  being  driven  hard 
about  a  gre?nhouse,  it  is  taken  and  imprisoned  in  the 
grasp.  Only,  in  the  wild  fiutterings  of  her  spirit  there  was 
no  desire  for  escape.  She  had  no  wish  other  than  never  to 
emerge  from  the  arms  that  kept  her.     She  craved  to  close 

357 


BROKE    OF   COVENDEN 

her  eyes  in  the  ecstasy  of  feeling  them  about  her,  never  to 
open  them  again. 

Minutes  passed  without  speech. 

"  Alas  !  alas  !  "  the  voice  repeated. 

She  still  hung  in  his  arms,  heeding  nothing. 

"  Alas,  poor  wild  little  bird  !  "  he  said,  sensible  of  the 
motions  of  her  heart  as  it  beat  through  her  print  dress. 

He  pressed  his  Ups  against  her  wet  cold  hair. 

"  You  have  no  hat.  Oh  !  why  have  you  come  Uke  this, 
^nd  in  such  a  season  ?  You  are  overborne,  you  poor  wild 
oird  beaten  against  stone  by  stress  of  weather.  Or,  no, 
your  pulses  flutter  like  those  of  a  small  lamb  that  has 
been  driven  till  it  dies." 

The  child  still  clung  to  him  with  all  her  strength,  fearing, 
in  some  desperate  manner,  that  when  she  released  him  he 
would  go. 

"  You  went  away,"  she  said ;  "  you  left  me,  and  I — I 
felt  I  could  not  live." 

"  But  I  come  back  to  you  now." 

"  You  will  not  go  from  me  again  ?  " 

"  Never,  never  !  " 

"  But  why,  oh  why  !  did  you  not  tell  me  you  were  com- 
ing back  ?  Why  did  you  go  without  giving  me  a  word — 
just  one  small  little  word,  that  I  might  live  ?  I  thought 
you  had  gone  from  me  for  always.  I  thought  you  had  gone 
from  me,  and  that  you  would  never  come  back.  Oh  !  I 
could  not  bear  it !  If  you  are  to  leave  me  again,  promise 
that  you  will  cast  me  from  that  height  above  us  before  you 

go." 

"  You  have  suffered,"  he  said,  with  grave  pity ;  "  yet  I 
acted  as  well  as  I  knew." 

"  Why,  oh  why  did  you  leave  me  so  ?  " 

"  I  did  not  know  myself.  I  had  to  put  myself  to  the 
test ;  I  had  to  be  worthy  of  you.  But  oh,  my  poor  Uttle 
bird,  how  you  have  suffered  !  " 

"  Why  did  you  not  give  me  just  one  small  Uttle  word  ? 
Only  one— one  to  keep  me  from  despair." 

"  Do  not  upbraid  me." 

Her  lips  were  yielded  to  his. 

"  I  have  been  wrong,"  he  said,  settling  her  upon  his 
breast.     "  You  make  me  begin  to  see  that  I  did  not  know 


PARIAH    IN    THE    NAME    OF    LOVE 

you,  even  as  I  did  not  know  myself.  But  I  must  tell  you 
my  story,  in  the  hope  that  it  may  help  you  to  forgive." 

Deha  strained  to  him  closer,  and  tucked  the  point  of 
her  chin  deeper  into  his  coat. 

"  Almost  from  the  first  day  of  our  coming  together  I 
saw  how  careful  I  must  be ;  and  when  I  saw  you  5neld 
more  and  more  as  the  weeks  went  on  I  grew  afraid.  I  did 
not  know  myself.  You  see  I  am  speaking  out  all  that  is 
in  my  mind,  for  there  can  be  no  secret  between  us  now." 

She  dug  her  chin  deeper. 

"  At  first,  you  see,  you  had  no  real  meaning  for  me.  You 
were  the  first  specimen  of  womanhood  of  a  rare  variety  I 
had  seen ;  and  I  suppose  I  was  Professor  Dryasdust  look- 
ing at  your  wonderful  mysterious  mechanism  under  a 
double  magnifying  glass.  At  least,  that  was  how  I  felt  at 
first.  You  were  an  intensely  interesting  pathognomical 
specimen,  but  you  did  not  fill  my  nights  and  days.  But 
then,  after  a  while,  this  apathetic  mind  began  to  concede 
you  something  else." 

Half  swooning  on  his  coat,  she  knitted  her  arms  to  him 
so  tightly  that  she  felt  they  were  like  to  crush  him  to  death. 
She  almost  longed  for  the  power.  It  was  as  though 
having  a  rare  jewel  miraculously  delivered  to  her  after  it 
had  been  given  up  for  lost,  she  yearned  to  embody  it  as  a 
piece  of  her  own  actual  self. 

"  After  that  I  began  to  see  you  as  you  were,  and  pre- 
sently preferred  to  come  to  you  rather  than  stay  at  home  to 
do  the  work  that  kept  my  heart  at  peace.  If  I  did  not  see 
you,  I  got  to  feel  that  I  had  passed  a  day  without  living. 
Your  presence  began  to  mean  more  and  more.  I  began  to 
carry  away  the  sound  of  your  voice  in  my  ears,  your  pretty 
little  childish  accents.  They  grew  like  music  ;  such  music 
that  one  day,  as  I  was  reading  "  Lycidas,"  they  pronounced 
the  magic  numbers  word  by  word.  That  put  me  in  fear, 
my  httle  one.  And  I  remember  that  one  calm  midnight, 
writing  in  my  attic  on  white  foolscap,  the  page  became  a 
transparency  by  which  I  could  look  through  the  films  of 
mysterious  darkness  which  kept  your  eyes.  There  and 
then  I  threw  the  pen  down,  and  for  a  whole  week  knew  not 
how  to  take  it  up  again.  But  with  all  this  I  felt  you  were 
going  faster  and  farther  than  could  I.     It  had  begun  to 

359 


BROKE    OF    COVENDEN 

dawn  upon  me  that  you  had  the  greater  nature,  or,  at  least, 
a  greater  one  in  love.  You  see,  we  wretched  people  have 
only  about  a  fifth  part  of  a  soul  to  call  our  own,  a  poor  gift, 
alas  !  to  bestow  upon  a  very  woman  who  has  brought  to 
us  the  whole  of  hers.  Art  is  the  inexorable,  jealous  mis- 
tress that  we  serve.  Far  too  great  a  tyrant  is  she  to  let  us 
render  an  adequate  service  to  a  mistress  of  our  native 
species,  endowed  with  flesh  and  blood  and  delicious  human 
caprices.  She  will  brook  no  rival  near  her  haughty  arro- 
gant celestial  throne. 

"  That  was  the  reason  why  by  now  I  was  afraid.  I 
knew  that  art  had  me  in  her  bonds.  Hence  the  need  for 
vigilance.  Beyond  everything  I  saw  how  essential  it  was 
that  you  should  not  be  misled.  Even  a  chance  word 
might  WTeak  an  injury.  I  must  be  wary  to  protect  you  ; 
for  you  see,  I  was  still  underrating  Nature  and  overrating 
Art.  How  could  you,  a  child,  hope  to  overthrow  the  most 
mighty,  the  most  ruthless,  the  most  passionate  tyrant  who 
ever  placed  her  yoke  on  the  neck  of  man  ?  How  in  the 
end  could  such  a  little  thing  as  you  hope  to  prevail  against 
her  ? 

"  Therefore,  when  I  went  to  London  I  was  sorely  beset.  My 
heart  had  become  the  battle-ground  of  two  terrible  powers 
in  the  strange  inner  world.  Nature,  the  Mighty  Mother,  had 
already  made  her  call  upon  me  ;  but  with  Art,  the  Mighty 
Mistress,  looming  in  the  background,  I  felt  I  dare  not  hft 
a  finger  in  response.  If  ever  you  read  the  biographies  of 
such  as  me,  you  will  understand  what  I  mean,  my  poor 
little  fairy  ;  there  are  very  few  of  us  who  are  not  guilty  of 
a  crime  when  we  dare  to  marry.  And  so  I  deemed  the  only 
honest  course  was  to  leave  you  without  a  hint  of  the  bloody 
conflict  in  my  spirit.  It  would  have  been  too  grievous  if, 
after  I  had  bidden  you  have  faith,  my  flaccid  fibres  in 
the  absorption  of  the  exotic  life  they  are  condemned  to 
lead  had  allowed  Art  to  spurn  Nature  after  all  I  think, 
had  that  happened  after  I  had  once  surrendered  to  you,  I 
could  never  have  regained  my  self-respect. 

"  That,  however,  is  far  behind  us  now.  Once  in  Lon- 
don, I  awrke  to  the  trite  fact  that  in  the  end  Nature 
nutsi  coiiquer.  Whatever  I  had  been  to  you  at  the 
time   of  my   going   away,   within   one  short  month   you 

?>6o 


PARIAH    IN    THE    NAME    OF    LOVE 

had  become  that  to  me,  and  more.  You  had  entered  into 
absolute  possession.  The  scheme  of  things  no  longer  had 
a  significance  apart  from  you.  Day  and  night,  I  was 
dominated  by  you  ;  you  were  in  my  dreams,  you  were  in 
my  work.  You  were  recaUed  to  me  in  a  thousand  shapes 
that  made  your  absence  mock  me.  There  were  a  hundred 
meanings  in  your  face  that  held  me  up  to  scorn  ;  the  lights 
in  your  eyes  grew  more  unfathomable  and  mysterious  ; 
the  carriage  of  your  Httle  head,  the  patter  of  your  little 
feet,  the  sound  of  your  voice  haunted  me — oh,  my  little 
fairy,  I  cannot  tell  you  how  they  haunted  me  ! 

"And  so  at  last  I  awoke  to  find  myself  your  equal.  I 
had  passed  through  the  ordeal  of  absence,  and  instead  of 
becoming  less  to  me  you  had  become  more,  a  thousand 
times  more.  I  knew  where  I  was  ;  at  last  I  was  empowered 
to  act.  Thus  when  I  left  London  this  morning  to  spend  a 
few  days  with  my  father  at  Cuttisham,  I  resolved  that  I 
would  seek  you  and  make  my  confession.  But  I  did  not 
look  to  find  you  here.  I  cannot  tell  what  mysterious 
agent  it  is  that  brought  you,  because  in  the  letter  I  sent  to 
you  this  morning  I  did  not  mention  time  or  place.  Above 
all,  I  made  no  reference  to  this  ruin  ;  indeed,  it  was  not  until 
half  an  hour  ago  that  I  thought  of  coming  here.  Then, 
observing  whither  my  walk  had  unconsciously  led,  I 
turned  to  look  upon  a  scene  that  will  be  ever  hallowed  by 
strange  memories." 

"  It  is  a  mysterious  Providence,"  cried  Delia.  "  Let  us 
kneel  here  on  this  bank  of  earth  and  ask  God  to  continue 
to  keep  us  in  His  care." 

"  We  are  strong  enough  to  make  our  own  destiny,"  said 
her  companion  in  the  arrogance  of  his  power.  He  gripped 
her  so  tightly  that  she  could  have  cried  out  in  a  very  glad- 
ness of  pain. 

But  the  return  of  a  perfect  sanity  to  the  child  was 
bringing  in  its  train  a  reaction  of  great  fear.  She  began  to 
shiver  in  the  arms  of  her  lover. 

"  Ah,  you  do  not  know,  you  do  not  know !  "  she  said 
mournfully. 

"  Are  we  not  of  the  mettle  that  grips  the  giant  Difficulty 
by  the  throat  ?  "  he  vaunted.  "  You  would  hardly  beUeve 
how  many  times  I  have  thrown  him  to  the  ground  " 

361 


BROKE    OF    COVENDEN 

**  I  have  seen  you  do  it  once,"  she  said  with  the  exaltation 
of  his  tone  stirring  in  her  pulses.  "  I  have  seen  you  do  it 
when  no  other  in  all  the  world  could  do  it." 

"It  can  be  done  again." 

"  I  am  thinking  of  my  father.  You  do  not  know  my 
father." 

The  voice  of  the  child  was  like  a  wail. 

"  The  name  of  that  giant  is  Convention.  Together,  in 
our  might,  I  think  we  can  do  battle  with  him  too." 

She  clung  to  his  coat  convulsively. 

"  You  do  not  fear,  my  little  one  ?  " 

"In  the  heart  of  me  there  is  a  wretched  cowardice." 

"  And  I  beside  you  ?  " 

"  You  cannot  know  what  my  father  is.  Men  like  you 
cannot  understand." 

"  Will  the  ogre  kill  me  and  eat  me  for  his  supper  ?  " 

The  child  shuddered  and  nestled  into  his  coat  once  more. 

"  We  will  put  on  our  invisible  coat  and  our  shoes  of 
swiftness,  and  borrow  the  sword  Excalibur,  or  get  friend 
Merlin  to  steal  it  for  us.  Be  of  good  courage,  my  little 
fairy  princess.  I  can  fight  any  giant  in  the  world  in  any 
enchanted  castle,  in  any  impenetrable  fastness,  with  any 
liery  dragons  before  the  mouth  of  it,  or  I  were  unworthy 
to  hold  you  in  my  arms.  Grip  tighter,  little  princess,  and 
fear  not." 

"  If  only  I  had  courage  !  "  said  poor  Delia. 

She  was  still  shivering  at  the  recollection  of  her  brother's 
fate. 

"  You  shall  not  fear  while  you  lie  against  my  heart.  I 
would  there  were  a  light  by  which  you  could  see  my  face. 
It  would  be  a  very  talisman  to  bear  you  through  those 
noisome  gloomy  caverns — Doubt  and  Difficulty.  It  never 
yet  turned  back  from  the  work  before  it.  Nor  ever  shall, 
poor  little  fairy,  nor  ever  shall  !  " 

By  virtue  of  these  arrogant  speeches  her  cheeks  began 
suddenly  to  glow.  She  saw  him  as  he  swooned  upon 
the  bank  of  earth  with  the  blood  flowing  from  his  wounded 
hands.  Such  heroic  words  as  these  were  his  splendid 
birthright.  In  another  they  were  boastfulness,  but  in 
him,  the  valiant  warrior,  they  were  proper  to  his  quality. 

"  I  do  not  fear  ;  I  am  not  afraid,"  she  cried. 
362 


PARIAH    IN    THE    NAME    OF    LOVE 

**  You  were  not  mine,  poor  little  fairy,  were  it  otherwise." 

"  Must  you,  must  you  see  my  father  ?  " 

"  Yes,  indeed.  I  must  beard  that  ogre  and  carry  my 
good  sword  in  my  hand." 

"  You  will  find  him  truly  terrible  !" 

She  was  trembling  painfully. 

"  How  cold  you  are  !  And  your  poor  heart  is  beating 
so.     Come,  small  princess,  you  shall  not  be  afraid." 

"  Ah,  but  he  is  so  terrible  ! 

"  And  we  ?     Are  we  not  terrible  also  ?  " 

She  closed  h^  eyes  again,  and  lay  back  shuddering  and 
buried  her  head  in  his  bosom.  YLe  imprinted  another  kiss 
with  extreme  delicacy  upon  her  wet  cold  hair.  He  then 
put  off  his  tone  of  romantic  lightness  for  one  a  little  more 
matter-of-fact,  as  became  one  in  whose  veins  the  Saxon 
was  mingled  with  the  Celt. 

"  And  now,"  he  said,  "  suppose  we  are  material  ?  That 
is  a  point  of  view  that  must  never  be  absent  from  the  mind 
of  the  honest  Briton.  I  think  we  can  safely  say  that 
the  world  has  not  ear-marked  us  to  come  together.  Still, 
if  the  happy  chance  that  called  us  into  being  also  pre- 
destined us  for  one  another,  perhaps  for  once  the  world  will 
be  put  to  shame.  Accidents  of  birth  and  fortune  have  no 
hen  upon  our  immortal  souls.  I  am  afraid  even  poor 
Mr.  Debrett  will  not  be  able  to  do  more  than  write  a 
letter  to  the  Standard.  Now  I  shall  be  able  to  build  a 
small  doU's-house  of  a  palace  for  you,  my  little  fairy 
princess,  if  your  aristocratic  spirit  can  stoop  to  the  region 
of  South  Kensington.  You  see  I  get  eight  hundred  pounds 
a  year  from  the  Review  ;  I  am  to  enjoy  a  subsidy  from 
the  University  of  Cambridge,  which  may  mean  a  little 
more  ;  and  publishers  have  already  deigned  to  take  such  a 
friendly  interest  in  me  because  of  the  little  book  I  pre- 
sented to  an  astonished  world  a  month  ago,  that  I  think  I 
can  add  still  a  little  more  from  that  direction  too.  There- 
fore, still  continuing  to  degrade  ourselves  with  the  material, 
there  should  be  enough  to  provide  for  the  little  princess 
who  lives  in  the  doU's-house  curds  and  whey  and  an  occa- 
sional bunch  of  flowers  newly  from  the  country,  which  I 
am  led  to  understand  is  all  that  fairy  princesses  choose  to 
live  upon.     And  now,  my  little  one,  the  evening  is  late.     I 

3^3 


BROKE    OF    COVENDEN 

can  feel  your  hands  are  ice  ;  you  have  no  hat  and  coat ;  you 

are  very  thinly  clad." 

At  the  mention  of  the  hour  Delia  leapt  up  in  horror. 

"  Oh  !  what  is  the  time  ?  I  had  quite  forgotten  it.  And 
I  have  not  been  home  to  dinner.  I  shall  be  scolded  dread- 
fully." 

He  struck  a  match  and  read  his  watch. 

"  Five  minutes  to  eleven." 

"  I  must  fly." 

"  Alas,  poor  Cinderella  !  " 

Long  ago  it  had  become  wholly  dark.  They  picked  their 
path  through  the  bracken  on  the  steep  hillside,  and  under- 
neath the  shyest,  faintest  shred  of  moon  made  their  way 
across  the  dew-soaked  meadows  to  the  near  neighbourhood 
of  the  house.  A  clock  from  an  adjacent  hamlet  chimed  the 
hour  of  eleven.  Delia's  heart  sank  as  it  counted  the  re- 
lentless strokes. 

"  Oh  !  whatever  will  happen  ?  "  she  cried  as  she  stood 
a  moment  in  despair. 

"  There  is  no  longer  a  place  for  fear  in  us.  Should  we 
walk  now  into  the  ogre's  parlour  hand  in  hand  ?  " 

"Oh,  no,  no,  no!  To-night  I  am  sure  I  could  not  bear 
what  would  follow.  I  think  you  will  never  be  able  to 
understand  what  my  father  is,  and  my  mother  also,  and 
my  sisters  worst  of  all  !  " 

"  You  are  right,"  he  said  ;  and  his  calmness  seemed  to 
add  density  to  her  despair.  "  We  must  be  wise  and  choose 
the  hour." 

"  It  makes  me  unhappy  to  hear  you  speak  so  lightly. 
When  the  full  weight  of  their  unkindness  falls  upon  you, 
I  almost  seem  to  fear  that  you  will  renounce  me." 

"  You  shall  not  have  such  a  thought.  From  this  night, 
come  what  may,  doubt  cannot  invade  us.  Never,  never 
shall  there  arise  a  cloud  between  us  now." 

"  You  are  greater  than  I,"  said  Delia,  peering  up  into 
his  face  by  the  aid  of  the  insufficient  light  of  the  moon, 
while  her  eyes  glowed  and  dilated  until  they  were  far 
superior  to  the  paltry  pair  of  stars  that  hung  about  heaven, 
"  always  greater  than  I.  Even  in  love  you  are  greater, 
and  yet  my  love  drove  me  to  the  verge  of  despair.  Who 
am  I  that  should  have  such  as  you  for  a  lover  ?    God  is  too 

3H 


PARIAH    IN    THE    NAME    OF   LOVE 

gentle  with  me  ;  He  rewards  me  out  of  all  proportion  to  my 
desert." 

"  You  will  never  doubt  again,  poor  little  falterer  ?  " 

"  Never,  never  while  I  live  !  " 

"  And  I  have  never  doubted  nor  will.  Good-bye, 
small  fairy.  A  kiss  and  then  good-night — here  by  this 
noble  tree  on  this  fair  spot  of  earth.  To-morrow  or  the 
next  day  I  will  beard  the  ogre  in  his  lair  ;  but  come  what 
may :  come  shine,  come  hail,  we  pledge  ourselves  for  ever  !  " 

"  For  ever  !  " 

She  was  locked  to  him  one  wild  instant  more. 

They  parted  underneath  the  young  moon,  and  went  their 
ways.  Delia  was  bareheaded  and  thinly  clad.  The 
damp  of  the  night  had  penetrated  her  stockings  and  shoes, 
and  her  petticoats  were  a  sop  where  their  edges  had  swept 
the  dew  from  the  fields  of  meadow-grass  through  which 
they  had  trailed.  The  clock  from  the  village  steeple 
struck  the  half-hour  after  eleven  ;  she  had  had  no  food 
since  the  middle  of  the  day,  and  that  very  scanty  ;  she  had 
been  exposed  to  the  open  for  many  hours,  but  she  was 
neither  cold  nor  hungry,  nor  thirsty,  nor  afflicted  with 
weariness.  She  was  not  even  heavy  of  heart.  There  was 
an  exotic  exaltation  in  her  spirit  that  for  the  present  placed 
her  beyond  the  reach  of  all  calamities  of  the  flesh. 

When  at  last  the  dark  form  of  her  lover  had  been 
swallowed  in  the  gloom  of  an  immense  wall  of  trees  and  lost 
to  view,  Delia  turned  to  go  indoors.  She  might  have  had 
fear  in  her  heart,  as  hunger,  and  in  her  limbs  weariness, 
and  other  infirmities  of  a  corporeal  character  residing 
somewhere  in  her  flesh.  But  in  nowise  was  she  sensible  of 
these  things.  There  was  that  magical  secret  in  her  that  had 
resolved  her  young  blood  into  ether,  so  that  she  seemed  no 
longer  to  have  feet  of  clay  rooted  in  the  mire  of  the  world. 


365 


CHAPTER   XXIX 
Two    Women 

TO  Delia's  relief  she  discovered  the  great  hall  door 
to  be  ajar.  So  late  was  the  hour  for  such  an  early 
retiring  household  that  she  was  afraid  she  would  have  to 
arouse  it  if  she  were  to  be  admitted. 

The  fact  that  the  hall  door  was  undone  was  a  phenomenon, 
and  very  properly  of  a  piece  with  the  transcending  events 
of  that  evening.  But  looking  a  little  farther  she  found 
the  explanation  of  it,  even  as  we  may  find  the  explanation 
of  all  phenomena  if  only  we  look  far  enough.  The  old 
butler  trod  softly  forward  from  out  of  the  dark  interior  in 
a  pair  of  carpet  slippers  with  a  candle  in  his  hand.  He 
placed  a  finger  to  his  lips. 

"  Be  very  quiet,  miss.  They  all  thought  you  were  in 
your  bedroom  at  dinner.  They  thought  you  were  unwell. 
They  have  not  found  you  out.  And  they  won't  if  you 
go  up  very  quietly. 

"  You  are  very  good  to  me,  Porson.  How  did  you 
know  I  was  out  ?  " 

"  I  had  an  instinct,  miss.  I  saw  you  were  not  at  the 
dinner-table ;  I  always  carry  you  all  in  my  eye,  you  know. 
And  I  learned  from  Walters  you  were  not  in  your  room. 
You  will  find  a  fire  there,  and  a  plate  of  bread  and  cold 
meat  and  a  basin  of  warm  milk.  If  I  may  take  the  liberty 
of  saying  it,  miss,  I  have  noticed  you  have  not  been  well 
for  some  little  time." 

366 


TWO   WOMEN 

"  You  are  too  good  to  me,  dear  Person.  How  did  you 
find  out  that  ?  " 

"  Perhaps  I  know  more  about  all  of  you,  miss,  than  you 
do  yourselves.  If  you  will  forgive  the  liberty,  I  don't 
think  if  you  were  my  own  daughters  you  could  be  more 
to  me  than  you  are.  You  see,  miss,  I  have  known  your 
father  all  his  life.  I  can  remember  quite  well  the  day 
he  was  born.  Man  and  boy  I  have  been  in  this  house  sixty- 
two  years  come  Christmas.  Now  if  you  go  very  quiet, 
especially  past  your  mother's  door,  no  one  will  know  of 
this.     Even  Mrs.  Smith  doesn't  know." 

The  august  old  gentleman  lighted  her  to  her  bedroom 
by  bearing  the  candle  cautiously  and  solemnly  before 
her. 

It  was  true  that  at  the  dinner-table  her  absence  had 
excited  no  comment,  after  Joan  had  hazarded  the  remark 
that  she  might  be  unwell.  Mrs.  Broke,  who  was  late  for  the 
meal  herself,  as,  unknown  to  her  husband  and  daughters, 
she  had  been  to  the  cottage  to  say  farewell  to  her  son, 
was  hardly  in  a  state  of  mind  to  exert  her  customary 
vigilance.  Besides  she  also,  by  the  light  of  what  had 
transpired  at  her  strange  interview  with  the  child  that 
morning,  thought  she  might  be  indisposed.  Broke 
himself,  who  of  late  had  become  the  most  apathetic  of  men, 
hardly  spoke  a  word  throughout  the  meal,  and  betrayed 
an  interest  in  nothing  beyond  the  strip  of  tablecloth 
immediately  before  him. 

Delia,  therefore,  was  spared  the  ordeal  which  she 
dreaded.  She  drank  the  basin  of  warm  milk  gratefully, 
and  slipped  into  bed,  and  then,  for  the  first  time  for  full 
many  an  unhappy  night,  she  slept  the  sleep  of  perfect  youth, 
of  perfect  health,  and  of  perfect  weariness.  It  was  deep, 
dreamless,  reconstructing. 

She  awoke  with  a  clear  heart  to  the  twitterings  of  birds 
about  her  window,  as  in  the  unintrospective  days  of  old. 
She  sprang  from  her  bed  refreshed  in  mind  and  body. 
There  was  a  little  carol  upon  her  lips.  The  night  of 
darkness  and  despair  was  past.  She  had  awakened  to  a 
fresh  and  joyous  day.  Her  spirit  was  no  longer  racked 
by  doubt.     She  was  beloved. 

In  the  sanity,  the  clearness,  the  calm  of  morning,  fear 

367 


BROKE    OF   COVENDEN 

could  exist  no  more.  An  exquisite  self-reliance  thrilled 
within  her.  There  was  no  room  for  baser  doubts  now 
that  the  crowning  one  of  all  had  been  for  ever  laid  at  rest. 
The  Uttle  world  in  which  she  had  been  reared,  the  little 
world  which  a  few  short  months  ago  had  been  so  dear> 
so  sacred  to  her,  might  now  conspire  to  spit  its  venom  at 
her  and  hers,  but  nothing,  as  it  seemed  in  the  splendour 
of  this  sovereign  day,  could  poison  the  clear  fountain 
from  whence  sprang  their  common  faith.  No  human 
obloquy  could  percolate  to  their  impregnable  love. 

She  had  awakened  to  find  herself  in  the  toils  of  a 
supreme  exultation.  For  the  first  time  she  tasted  the 
pleasure  that  has  its  source  in  the  requital  of  love.  The 
passion  in  its  craving,  in  its  insatiable  madness  of  desire, 
is  a  fever ;  but  the  consummation  of  it,  the  sanctity  of 
faith  answering  to  faith,  may  be  compared  to  a  strange 
beatitude  serenely  rising  like  an  aerial  vapour  above  the 
hissing  cauldron  of  chaos.  Delia  dressed  blithely.  Sing- 
ing, she  sallied  out  to  feed  her  pets.  Presently  she 
returned  to  procure  a  crust  of  bread  to  gnaw  herself,  for 
she  had  suddenly  made  the  discovery  that  she  was 
desperately  hungry. 

It  was  hardly  more  than  five  o'clock.  The  cold  and 
pure  airs  of  the  morning  that  swept  her  temples  now 
recalled  vaguely  to  her  mind  the  feverish  longing  that  had 
possessed  her  the  previous  evening  to  lay  her  burning 
forehead  on  cold  stone.  But  the  transactions  of  that 
insane  period  had  become  little  more  than  a  dream  already. 
She  was  far  too  reasonable  now  to  be  able  to  look  back 
upon  them  with  any  sense  of  detail.  Clothed  in  our  right 
minds  we  cannot  enter  intimately  into  the  high  delirium 
of  fever  and  unreason. 

She  sang  to  herself  softly  as  she  tripped  over  the  wet 
lawns,  and  she  did  not  fear.  Fate  and  her  world  should 
put  their  heads  together  and  contrive  their  worst,  bu( 
the  necessary  resolution  was  now  hers  to  stand  steadfast. 
She  was  like  her  brother  now.  Yesterday  her  complaint 
had  been  that  her  love  had  its  foundations  in  the  sand. 
But  now,  like  his,  it  was  raised  upon  the  imperishable  _ 
rock.  Yesterday  she  felt  that  she  could  never  be  as 
resolute  as  he.     Now  she  had  awakened  to  learn  that 

368 


TWO   WOMEN 

she  had  misjudged  the  forces  of  her  heart.    This  morning 
she  felt  her  strength  to  be  as  great  as  that  of  any  creature 

in  the  world. 

Her  happy  way  led  her  down  a  remote  path,  in  which 
was  a  small  summer-hutch  without  a  door.  Coming  upon 
it  suddenly  she  was  transfixed  by  an  apparition  seated  in 
it  shrouded  in  grey  light.  It  was  Maud  Wayhng,  bare- 
headed and  clad  in  a  dress  of  white  muslin.  She  was 
reading  a  book.  She  hf ted  her  wonderful  grey  eyes  to  DeUa, 
and  smiled  wanly. 

"  Come  and  sit  by  me,"  she  said,  "  and  take  my  hand 
and  speak  to  me.  Are  we  not  both  waj^arers  in  the  same 
dark  valley  ?  Are  we  not  both  stricken  of  the  same 
mortal  complaint  ?  " 

Delia  was  no  longer  timid.  Ever  since  Maud  WayUng 
had  been  among  them  in  that  house  she,  in  common  with 
her  sisters,  had  been  in  fear  of  her;  but  this  morning 
that  feeling  and  the  self-conscious  reserve  induced  by  it 
had  passed  away.  Without  hesitation  she  approached. 
The  vivid  pallor  of  Miss  Wayhng's  face  afflicted  her.  It 
was  peculiarly  cold  and  placid  ;  as  transparent  as  marble  ; 
and  the  rings  that  had  lately  come  about  her  eyes  were 
the  only  tints  upon  it  that  had  any  value  as  colour.  As 
Delia  came  to  her  now,  her  own  experience  enabled  her 
only  too  clearly  to  understand  the  true  nature  of  her 
malady.  The  proud  and  unapproachable  creature  was 
suddenly  represented  in  a  new  light. 

"  You  loved  him  ;  you  loved  Billy  ;  and  he  has  gone  from 
you,"  cried  Delia.  "  I  know  what  it  is  to  bear  that, 
because  I  have  had  to  bear  it  too." 

"There  is  no  hope  for  women  like  us,"  said  Maud  Wayling. 
"  When  we  are  bereft  we  can  only  wither.  I  say  this 
to  you  because  we  both  suffer  the  same  inexpressibly 
bitter  degradation.  There  is  no  rest  for  us,  no  peace  ; 
we  can  only  perish.  Our  mouths  are  stopped  with  dust 
and  ashes,  but  they  cannot  always  stifle  the  words  that 
surge  upon  our  lips.  It  only  remains  for  us  to  hide  our 
heads." 

"  Yesterday  I  felt  so,"  said  Delia,  and  she  could  not 
wholly  repress  the  thrill  of  exaltation  in  her  voice  strive 
as  she  might  to  do  so  out  of  pity  for  the  wretchedness 

3'59  A  A 


BROKE    OF    COVENDEN 

of  this  other  sufferer.  "  But  I  am  not  so  now.  It  has 
pleased  God  to  have  mercy  upon  me  ;  I  am  very  happy 
now.  But  perhaps  I  ought  not  to  tell  you  this ;  it  may 
give  you  pain.  Perhaps  I  am  cruel  and  unkind.  I 
have  no  right  to  speak  of  happiness  when  you  are  so 
unhappy.  Please  forgive  me  ;  but  this  morning  I  feel 
it  is  impossible  to  conceal  from  any  one  the  terrible  joy 
that  is  making  me  so  happy." 

"  I  am  glad  to  see  you  happy.  I  have  measured  your 
affliction  by  my  own,  although  I  dared  not  speak  to  you 
about  it." 

"  And  yours,  and  yours  !  It  has  been  base  of  me  not  to 
see  what  your  affliction  was.  Oh,  but  I  see  now  !  Every 
inch  of  these  dark  ways  have  we  walked  together.  I  have 
not  been  alone  in  rny  despair.  And  yet  so  lately  as  last 
evening  it  nearly  overcame  me.  I  have  not  known  how 
to  pass  my  days.  There  has  been  no  solace  anywhere. 
At  least,  poor  Maud,  if  others  do  not  mourn  for  you,  I 
shall  always.  I  do  not  know  why  my  happiness  has 
been  restored  to  me  in  tenfold  measure  when  you,  who  are 
so  much  wiser,  so  much  better,  so  much  more  beautiful, 
have  had  your  happiness  taken  from  you,  never  to  be 
given  back.     It  does  not  seem  just." 

"  I  am  trying  to  acquire  the  habit  of  not  complaining 
of  Fate,"  said  the  beautiful  unhappy  woman  ;  "  but  the 
task  is  heavy.  It  calls  for  more  tenacity  of  purpose,  a 
greater  strength  of  nature  than  I  possess.  As  you  say,  it 
does  not  seem  just.  But  I  think  I  am  coming  slowly  to 
see  in  what  way  I  have  offended.  There  is  surely  a  reason 
for  a  punishment  so  unmitigated.  I  am  coming  slowly 
to  see  that  it  is  because  I  have  surrendered  myself  to  a 
heartless  and  selfish  mode  of  life.  My  interests  have 
been  too  much  centred  in  myself.  My  thoughts  have 
run  too  much  upon  my  private  ease  ;  they  have  poisoned 
my  very  spirit,  sapped  my  resolution.  My  inhuman 
selfishness  has  cloj^ed  the  springs  of  my  heart.  It  has  no 
recoil.     This  is  why  I  am  punished." 

"  But  why  should  not  I  be  punished  too  ?  "  said  Deha. 
"  It  does  not  seem  just  that  I  should  be  condemned  to 
suffer  only  for  a  term  when  you  must  suffer  always.  I 
am  sure  my  crime  has  not  been  less  than  yours  ;  at  least 

370 


TWO    WOMEN 

no  one  could  have  thought  more  about  oneself  than  I 
have  lately." 

"Yes;  but  your  nature  is  wholesomer,  honester,  purer, 
stronger,  than  is  mine.  It  has  not  been  subjected,  and  has 
not  fallen  a  prey  to  the  temptations  of  money.  You  do 
not  know  what  a  curse  money  is.  You  can  scarcely  be 
made  to  understand  what  a  crop  of  foul  diseases  it  breeds. 
The  idle  can  never  be  happy ;  the  creatures  of  surfeit  can 
never  rejoice.  And  for  one  like  me  to  be  bred  in  the 
manner  that  I  have  been,  and  not  to  languish,  not  to 
swoon  on  the  cushions  of  prosperity,  seems  to  be 
impossible." 

"  Is  there  not  a  cure  ?  " 

"  I  seem  to  fear  that  my  nature  is  not  great  enough  to 
effect  a  cure.  But  I  am  sure  that  if  I  do  not  soon  find 
something  to  lessen  the  pressure  of  my  thoughts  I  shall 
not  be  able  to  bear  my  affliction.  It  is  more  than  we 
nurselings  of  wealth  can  endure  to  be  thwarted  in  our 
smallest  desires,  let  alone  in  our  greatest.  We  cannot 
escape  from  ourselves.  The  monotonj',  the  heart-jwearing 
wretchedness  of  being  ever  face  to  face  with  our  own 
imperious  desires  has  no  alleviation.  I  begin  to  envy  the 
lives  of  the  women  in  the  London  shops.  They  have  not 
forgotten  the  taste  of  happiness.  When  they  can  snatch 
an  instant  from  the  battle  of  existence  to  give  to  themselves, 
they  enjoy  a  truer  luxury  than  we  creatures  of  surfeit  have 
ever  known.  Think  of  the  child  at  the  cottage  whom 
your  brother  has  married.  She  has  known  more  of 
happiness  in  her  squalid  little  life  than  have  I  in  all  my 
acclaimed  and  feted  one.  The  very  simphcity  of  nature 
that  is  in  her  is  an  alluring  thing ;  whereas  the  stagnating, 
foetid  complexity  of  an  extreme  civilisation  that  is  in  me 
is  a  rank  offence  that  smells  to  Heaven.  I  suppose  my 
unhealthy  life,  reacting  on  my  weak  nature,  has  made  me 
what  they  call  an  egoist— an  unhappy  victim  of  the  god 
of  Self." 

The  beautiful  unhappy  woman  covered  her  face  with 
her  hands. 

Delia,  in  spite  of  the  ecstasy  of  her  own  situation,  was 
filled  with  pain  by  such  a  distress.  In  regarding  it  she 
beheld  a  state  of  mind  from  which  she  had  miraculously 

371 


BROKE    OF   COVENDEN 

escaped.  This  austere,  this  aloof  creature,  wto  was  so 
fair,  was  being  seared  by  a  suffering  that  too  intimately 
she  understood.  Humein  nature,  it  seemed,  was  much 
the  same  all  the  world  over.  One  of  her  complete  humility 
was  privileged  to  share  the  pangs  of  the  proudest  bosom. 


372 


CHAPTER  XXX 
In  the  Maelstrom 

WHEN  Delia  came  in  to  breakfast  her  mother  looked 
at  her  with  a  keenness  that  was  disconcerting. 
She  did  not  speak,  but  to  the  child  her  glance  seemed  preg- 
nant with  meaning.  The  recollection  suddenly  swept  over 
her  that  her  lover  had  posted  a  letter  to  her  the  previous 
day,  and  that  as  yet  it  had  not  come  into  her  hands.  A 
pang  sank  into  her.  It  was  born  of  the  conviction  that  it 
had  been  intercepted. 

From  that  moment  a  steady  reaction  came  upon  her. 
The  buoyant  fearlessness  of  the  early  morning  began  slowly 
to  decline.  The  habit  of  reflection  reasserted  itself  in  her, 
and  it  brought  foreboding  in  its  train.  What  would  happen 
when  her  lover  came  to  see  her  father  ?  She  hardly  dared 
to  frame  the  sinister  question.  Her  mother,  in  the  earliest 
days  of  his  appearance  in  that  house,  had  shown  herself 
capable  of  making  cruel  speeches  to  his  face,  and  behind 
his  back  of  even  more  cruel  references.  As  for  her  father, 
him  to  whom  all  ber  life  her  instincts  had  led  her  to  look  as 
her  natural  protector  and  friend,  after  his  harsh  dealing 
with  the  brother  beloved  by  them  all,  who  should  say  in 
what  manner  he  would  be  moved  to  deal  with  her  ! 

The  consequences  that  might  ensue  upon  her  lover's 
coming  to  that  house  grew  intolerable  to  consider.  The 
condition  of  intense  restlessness  the  subject  induced  led 
her  to  seek  a  preoccupation.  In  this  suspense  of  the  im- 
pending, silence  and  solitude  grew  too  ominous  to  support. 
She  must  do  something,  go  somewhere.  Accordingly  she 
went    to    the  cottage   to  see  her  brother's  young  wife. 

373 


BROKE    OF    COVENDEN 

Had  she  not  promised  Billy  to  go  and  see  her  frequently  ? 
There  was  the  consciousness  that  by  so  doing  she  was 
fulfilling  a  duty  that  had  been  imposed  upon  her  ;  besides, 
she  had  to  confess  that  there  was  a  longing  within  her  to 
acquire  the  first-hand  experiences  of  those  in  the  vortex 
of  this  passion  of  love. 

At  the  cottage,  although  the  sun  still  bathed  the  clean 
walls,  and  in  the  wood  behind  the  birds  still  piped  their 
spring  notes,  the  spirit  that  yesterday  presided  there  had 
gone  away.  All  things  were  unchanged,  yet  the  presiding 
genius  was  not  there.  To-day  they  were  flat  and  tame, 
and  palled  upon  the  heart,  where  yesterday  they  were 
quick  and  significant  and  filled  with  a  memorable  fra- 
grance. At  the  moment  Delia  entered  the  trim  and 
spotless  kitchen  she  was  afflicted  with  this  sense  of  loss. 
The  absence  of  a  laughing  voice,  a  frank  presence,  a  pair 
of  tormenting  impudent  arms  haunted  her.  It  seemed 
to  pollute  the  light  of  the  sun  and  render  all  things  grey. 
And  her  own  feeling  of  bereavement  was  reflected 
poignantly  in  the  face  of  the  old  woman  and  the  young. 

Alice  came  to  greet  her  with  a  hungry  eagerness,  and 
a  faint  cry  upon  her  slightly  parted  lips.  She  had  already 
learned  to  overcome  her  timidity  in  regard  to  Delia.  She 
was  Billy's  sister  ;  and  her  love  for  him  was  a  complement 
to,  not  a  rival  of,  her  own.  But  this  morning  the  young 
wife  was  wan  with  terror. 

"  I  have  ruined  him,"  she  said  in  a  hard  voice,  without 
emotion. 

Delia  received  her  tenderly  in  her  arms. 

"  No,  oh,  no  !  "  she  found  the  courage  to  say.  "  A  love 
like  yours  could  never  do  that." 

"  It  is  because  of  me  he  is  driven  away,"  said  the  young 
wife.  "  I  was  wicked  and  unheeding,  and  thought  only 
of  myself,  or  I  should  have  known  that  so  it  must  be.  It 
was  not  possible  for  me  to  be  the  fit  companion  of  my 
husband.  1  ought  to  have  recognized  that,  and  have 
saved  him  from  the  ruin  he  could  not  foresee." 

"It  is  not  ruin,"  said  Delia.  "  He  will  return  to  you 
soon,  rich  and  full  of  love.  His  love  for  you  will  be  more, 
if  it  were  pos-ible  for  it  to  be  more,  and  he  will  no  longer 
be  dependent  on  others." 

374 


IN    THE    MAELSTROM 

"  There  is  something  in  my  heart  that  tells  me  he  will 
not  return.  I  have  been  base  and  wicked,  and  God  will 
know  how  to  punish  me.  I  have  thought  only  of  myself. 
I  did  not  think  of  those  who  were  near  and  dear  to  him  ; 
of  you  and  your  sisters,  of  the  beautiful  lady  who  loved 
him,  of  the  mother  who  has  been  so  good  to  me,  and  the 
poor  father  I  have  made  so  unhappy.  It  has  been  wanton 
of  me.  In  the  gratification  of  my  own  wishes  I  had  no 
thought  of  the  misery  I  might  bring  upon  others  who  were 
very  close  to  him  ;  others  very  full  of  love  for  him  ;  others 
who  were  so  much  better,  so  much  nobler  than  myself.  I 
do  not  know  how  any  of  you  can  forgive  me ;  I  do  not 
deserve  to  be  forgiven.     God  will  not." 

The  hard  tones  of  her  despair  were  cis  so  many  blows 
delivered  on  Delia's  breast.  The  words  of  consolation 
welling  out  of  it  were  ruthlessly  forced  back. 

"  When  your  brother  gave  me  his  love,"  the  young  wife 
went  on,  "  my  thoughts  were  of  him  and  of  myself  and  of 
what  we  were  to  one  another.  And  when  he  asked  me  to 
be  his  wife,  although  I  was  so  much  frightened,  I  could 
only  see  the  bearing  it  would  have  on  my  own  Hfe,  and  on 
my  aunt's.  I  saw  no  farther  then.  I  could  not  see  his 
mother  and  father,  and  his  sisters  in  the  background  all 
as  full  of  sorrow  as  I  was  full  of  joy.  Poverty  and  toil  made 
me  very  cruel  and  self-seeking.  I  have  ruined  him  who 
loved  me,  because  I  would  not  deny  myself  his  love.  But 
God  will  punish  me." 

The  fragile  creature  quivered  hke  a  leaf  in  the  wind. 

"  He  will  come  back  soon,"  said  the  valiant  Delia,  apply- 
ing the  comfort  of  one  child  to  another.  "  He  will  come 
back  very  rich,  and  my  father  and  mother  and  sisters 
will  be  so  happy  that  they  will  be  very  grateful  to 
you." 

"  He  will  never  come  back,"  said  the  young  wife.  "  I 
have  been  so  wicked  that  God  will  never  allow  him  to 
return.  I  shall  not  be  allowed  another  moment  of  happi- 
ness. I  have  had  my  hour,  and  it  was  more  than  I 
deserved! " 

"  You  have  not  been  wicked,"  said  Delia.  "  Only  heartless 
and  cruel  and  unworthy  people  could  say  that.  Love  is  not 
wickedness.     It  is  all  nobility  and  purity  ;  and  if  we  are 

375 


BROKE    OF    COVENDEN 

punished  because  we  love  worthily  and  righteously,  those 
who  punish  us  are  unjust." 

A  prophetic  fire  broke  forth  so  suddenly  from  the  lips  of 
Billy's  sister,  that  the  youthful  wife  recoiled  from  her,  and 
looked  wonderingly  into  her  vivid  eyes.  The  brooding 
blue  depths  she  beheld  were  the  haunts  of  mysteries  that 
her  own  brief  but  highly  wrought  experience  dimly  enabled 
her  to  apprehend. 

"  Those  were  my  thoughts  but  a  few  weeks  ago,"  said 
Alice,  "  but  I  was  bUnd  then  and  could  not  see.  Believe 
me,  dear  Miss  Broke,  such  a  bUndness  is  wrong  and 
wicked.  If  we  purchase  this  love  that  is  so  pure  and  noble 
at  the  price  of  the  happiness  of  others  surely  our  selfishness 
cannot  be  forgiven.  My  love  for  your  brother  and  my 
poverty  caused  me  to  be  blind  and  callous.  I  could  not  see 
the  truth,  and  did  not  wish.  I  was  beloved,  and  I  asked 
no  more.  But  now  the  scales  are  taken  from  my  eyes  by 
the  God  who  knew  all  the  time  what  I  was  doing,  and 
hated  me  for  my  wickedness.  Yes,  Miss  Broke,  He  knew 
what  I  was  doing.  And  now  He  has  taken  away  the 
happiness  I  gained  so  wrongfully,  and  because  of  that  He 
will  never  give  it  back.     He  knows  I  am  unworthy." 

The  hard  poignancy  that  underlay  the  soft  accents 
seemed  to  bruise  Delia.  Her  mother,  in  the  first  interview 
with  the  old  aunt,  had  had  an  experience  much  the 
same. 

No  words  of  consolation,  however  tenderly  and  valiantly 
conveyed,  could  avail  against  the  conviction  of  Alice  that 
an  offended  deity  was  dealing  in  person  with  her  affairs. 
And  worse,  such  were  the  clear  eyes  that  anguish  had  given 
her,  she  could  trace  in  the  eager  attempts  made  by  the 
sister  of  her  husband  to  bring  her  comfort  something  of 
the  source  from  which  they  sprang.  Delia's  passionate 
speeches  of  consolation  could  hardly  arise  from  a  purel} 
impersonal  desire  to  mitigate  the  pain  she  suffered.  Hei 
hot  words  leaped  forth  too  palpably  under  the  goad  of  a 
fierce  impulse.  Such  flaming  cheeks,  such  flashing  anima- 
tion of  her  limpid  eyes,  such  hectic  utterance  could  hardly 
be  aroused  by  a  wholly  disinterested  seeking  after  the 
welfare  of  her  brother's  wife,  dearly  as  she  might  be  known 
to  love  him.     Alice,  by  the  light  of  her  experience,  could 

376 


IN    THE    MAELSTROM 

too  truly  read  the  cause.  Her  wise  eyes  saw  that  Delia 
was  scorched  already  by  the  sacred  flame. 

"  Forgive  me,  dear  Miss  Broke,  but  I  pray  you,  I  be- 
seech you  to  take  heed  of  that  which  has  fallen  upon  me. 
Do  not  act  in  wantonness  as  I  have  done,  lest  an  injury 
you  do  to  others  be  avenged  upon  you." 

Delia  turned  cold.  A  feeMng  of  nausea  was  over- 
spreading her. 

"  But,  oh,  Alice,  how  can  we  injure  others  if  our  love 
is  pure  and  worthy  ?  " 

The  young  wife  pressed  her  palms  tightly  together  and 
closed  her  eyes  like  one  in  the  act  of  suffering  an, unen- 
durable pain. 

"  Ah,  dear  Miss  Broke,  those  were  my  words  only  a 
month  ago  !  " 

"  I  will  repeat  them,  I  will  repeat  them,"  said  Delia 
wildly,  seizing  the  hands  of  Alice. 

"  The  thought  is  too  hard  for  us  to  bear,"  said  Alice. 
"  We  dare  not  think  that  a  love  like  ours  should  injure 
others.  But  it  does,  Miss  Broke,  and  as  surely  as  it  does 
will  God  avenge  it  in  us." 

"  Oh,  I  will  not,  I  cannot  believe  it !  " 

"  Have  I  not  ruined  your  brother  ?  " 

"  No,"  said  Delia  fiercely,  "it  is  not  true.  It  was  my 
father  that  banished  my  brother  from  you,  not  your  perfect 
love." 

"  Has  he  not  always  been  a  kind  and  generous  father  ? 
If  it  were  not  that  there  was  clear  cause  of  offence  in  me, 
surely  so  just  a  man  would  not  have  turned  against  him. 
It  is  because  he  knows  I  am  base  and  unworthy.  And 
that  is  what  I  am,  else  never  in  the  selfishness  of  my  heart 
would  I  have  taken  away  from  him  I  loved  more  than  it 
were  possible  for  the  love  I  bore  him  to  repay." 

Against  such  a  desolation  nothing  could  avail.  All 
predictions  that  Delia  made  of  her  brother's  speedy  and 
prosperous  return  were  as  the  droppings  of  water  upon 
stone.  Nothing  could  change  that  arid  despair.  Delia 
could  not  endure  to  stay  and  witness  it.  A  grief  that  lay 
too  deep  for  tears,  that  nothing  could  make  less,  or  for 
which  a  term  could  be  defined,  so  oppressed  the  beholder 
that  she  became  as  oue  with  it.    Thoughts  of  the  position 

377 


BROKE    OF    COVENDEN 

in  which  she  herself  stood  at  that  moment  were  in- 
duced. Promising  to  return  the  next  day  and  the  next, 
and  for  full  many  a  one  to  come,  as  though  in  such  a 
childlike  willingness  to  heal  some  measure  of  surcease 
might  reside,  Delia  left  the  cottage  faint  of  spirit  and 
cold  of  heart. 

New  doubts  rose  up  like  mountains  in  her  so  impres- 
sionable mind.  In  the  face  of  a  grief  so  barren  love  itself 
lost  something  of  its  radiant  significance.  Could  it,  after 
all,  be  an  act  of  guilt  to  cast  one's  thoughts  in  a  direction 
that  those  in  authority  over  one  had  forbidden  them  to 
go  ?  By  the  light  of  that  morning's  intercourse  her  own 
case  was  picked  out  with  hideous  plainness.  It  was  surely 
parallel  and  counterpart.  There  were  those  who  were 
near  and  dear  it  behoved  her  to  consider.  There  were  the 
father  and  the  mother  and  the  sisters  who  would  be 
stricken  by  her  conduct.  Was  not  the  distraught  Alice 
right  ?  Did  she  not  speak  with  the  prophetic  instinct 
born  of  a  terrible  experience  ?  The  pain  inflicted  upon 
others  could  not  be  justified  by  a  corresponding  gratifica- 
tion bestowed  upon  oneself.  The  duty  she  owed  to  the 
friends  who  had  nurtured  her  was  very  great.  She  must 
yield  her  lover.  Oh  God,  she  must  yield  him  to  the 
jjrejudices  of  those  who  held  her  dear  ! 

The  thought  was  too  inexpressible  to  contemplate. 
She  walked  faster  down  the  hill  to  the  green  fields,  faster 
and  faster  she  walked  to  the  birds  and  the  insects  and  the 
sweet-breathing  earth.  She  must  outstrip  that  thought, 
outpace  it,  run  from  it,  lose  it  wholly  and  for  ever  in  the 
mazes  of  the  over-grown  hedgerows  tangled  with  nettles 
and  briars.  It  must  never  find  her  again.  Kind  God  in 
heaven,  it  must  never  find  her  again  ! 

It  is  not  given  to  the  strongest  of  us,  however,  to  bar 
out  thought  by  the  door  of  mere  resolution.  The  cruel 
suggestion,  the  intolerable  suggestion,  continued  again  and 
again  to  recur.  No  matter  whether  she  walked  or  ran  it 
was  a  spectre  gliding  noiselessly  by  her  side.  If  such  an 
anguish  as  that  of  the  young  wife  at  the  cottage  was  the 
consummation  of  a  passion  so  pure,  so  perfect  in  itself,  so 
all-sufficing,  must  there  not  be  some  subtle,  some 
ineradicable  taint-  residing  there  unrevealed  to  those  who 

378 


IN    THE    MAELSTROM 

harboured  it,  else  she  who  slaked  her  so  great  thirst  at  the, 
immortal  spring  could  never  awake  to  discover  that  the 
draught  had  poisoned  her  sweet  blood. 

Could  it  be  that  her  duty  to  her  friends  was  more  sacred 
than  that  to  her  lover  and  her  own  nature  ?  Inquiries 
of  this  kind  are  not  hkely  to  have  much  authority  with 
passion,  but  to  inexperience  striving  to  go  right  they  may 
present  themselves  in  the  reaction  from  that  first  strange 
ravishment  of  the  spirit.  The  self-accusing  misery  of  her 
brother's  wife  haunted  Delia  as  a  premonition  of  her  own 
doom.  She  and  her  love  would  soon  stand  before  the 
world  in  precisely  that  guise.  Must  a  similar  tyrannical 
Providence  intervene  to  blast  their  lives  if  their  unUcensed 
inclination  dared  to  set  the  world  at  nought  ? 

That  afternoon  was  to  be  dedicated  to  a  garden  party  at 
a  great  house  in  the  neighbourhood.  The  six  daughters 
of  the  house  of  Broke  put  on  their  best  white  summer- 
afternoon  frocks,  which  for  several  years  past  had  done 
duty  on  state  occasions,  and  set  out  in  the  ramshackle 
omnibus  with  their  mamma.  Dark  forebodings  clouded 
the  heart  of  Delia  even  as  she  went.  In  it  there  was  a 
reasonable  presumption  amounting  to  certainty  thslt  her 
lover  would  appear  before  her  father  during  her  absence. 
High  tension  is  apt  to  breed  a  strain  of  fatalism  in  the 
best-balanced  of  us  ;  surely  was  it  not  in  the  nature  of 
things  that  her  lover  should'  come  to  her  father's  house 
when  there  would  be  no  friendly  presence  to  protect  him  ? 
Within  the  last  few  days  she  had  conceived  a  genuine 
horror  of  her  father.  In  the  reaction  from  a  lifetime 
passed  in  blind  adoration  of  him,  he  stood  out  now  in  her 
imagination  a  ver3''  ogre  in  his  treatment  of  the  tender  and 
the  helpless.  Intensely  she  could  have  wished  to  be  at 
home  when  her  knight  came  to  confront  the  giant  in  his 
lair.  A  sight  of  her  might  strengthen  him  still  more,  al- 
though his  courage  was  the  noblest  thing  she  had  ever 
known.  The  sense  that  she  was  near  him  might  do  some- 
thing to  soften  the  nature  of  the  ordeal.  She  might 
break  a  rebuff,  or  avert  high  words  arising  between  them. 
For  she  was  possessed  with  a  fear  that  the  untoward 
must  ensue.  They  both  had  implacable  natures.  She 
knew  that  if  they  once  set  up  their  wills  one  against  the 

379 


BROKE    OF    COVENDEN 

other,  like  a  pair  of  mastiffs  they  might  go  for  one  another's 
throats,  and  contend  for  the  ascendency  until  one  or  both 
lay  dying  on  the  floor.  That  was  the  clay  in  which  they 
were  fashioned.  In  her  chivalrous  childish  heart  she 
yearned  to  buckle  on  the  armour  or  to  bear  the  spear  of 
the  so  gallant  knight  who  was  to  contend  for  their  joint 
cause  before  the  dragon.  If  only  he  had  not  to  go  alone  I 
If  only  she  could  be  at  his  elbow  to  cheer  him  on  his  way  ! 
If  only  it  could  be  her  fortune  to  intercept  any  chance 
buffet  hurled  at  the  sacred  form  of  him  who  dared  every- 
thing for  her  ! 

So  luridly  was  the  image  of  impending  calamity  before 
her  eyes  that  she  almost  allowed  herself  to  plead  a  head- 
ache as  an  excuse  to  avoid  the  garden  party.  By  the 
time  the  afternoon  came  round  there  was  a  conviction  in 
her  that  there  would  arise  during  the  next  few  hours  a 
crying  need  for  her  presence  in  that  house.  To  such  an 
extent  was  she  worked  on  by  this  idea  that  tentatively 
she  complained  to  her  mother  of  being  unwell,  and  ex- 
pressed a  preference  for  staying  at  home.  Her  mother, 
however,  was  emphatic  in  her  insistence  that  she  should 
accompany  the  rest.  And  to  Delia,  in  the  throes  of  her 
prepossession,  the  vigorous  nature  of  that  insistence 
allied  to  the  fact  that  her  mother  had  already  suppressed 
her  lover's  letter,  and  had  studiously  avoided  any  reference 
to  his  name,  gave  colour  to  her  fears. 


380 


CHAPTER  XXXI 
In  which  our  Hero  takes  down  his  Battle-Axe 

THERE  are  times  when  a  man  may  feel  himself  to 
be  the  victim  of  a  conspiracy  on  the  part  of  Destiny. 
Circumstance  treads  on  the  heels  of  circumstance,  mis- 
fortune succeeds  misfortune,  horror  accumulates  on  the 
head  of  horror,  until  the  most  trivial  incidents  are  invested 
by  a  tragic  shape,  and  the  commonest  accidents  of  life 
become  part  of  the  design  against  us. 

Broke  sat  in  his  library  that  afternoon  re-reading  for 
the  tenth  time  a  letter  that  lately  had  come  into  his  hands. 
It  was  not  addressed  to  him  in  the  first  place,  but  that  was 
not  a  fact  to  lessen  its  significance  in  his  eyes.  At  the 
outset  it  has  to  be  confessed  that  to  a  man  of  sober  brain, 
whose  life  was  a  fabric  of  dull  and  reasonable  events,  there 
was  hardl}'  a  line  in  it  which  could  be  construed  into 
offence.  But  Broke's  mind  no  longer  moved  upon  the 
patient  path  of  sanity.  It  ran  ahead  of  itself  and  climbed 
perilous  altitudes  to  view  the  motives  of  others.  Awful 
shapes  were  residing  in  his  fancy.  Other  persons,  in  their 
commonest  dealings  with  him,  were  sinisterly  clad.  A  grim 
suspicion  enhanced  the  tritest  facts.  He  had  ceased  to 
tolerate  ;  in  peace  he  could  neither  live  nor  let  live.  There 
was  a  conspiracy  against  him  ;  there  was  an  anarchist  ready 
to  cast  a  bomb  inside  every  cloak  that  fluttered. 

The  world  had  laid  a  plot  to  pull  down  to  its  own  ignoble 
level  the  sovereign  thing  he  called  his  pride.  North,  south, 
east,  and  west  it  was  springing  its  base  emissaries  on  him 
with  that  object  in  view.  Now  they  tripped  him  up,  now 
threw  dust  into  his  eyes,  now  stabbed  him  in  the  back, 
now  hit  him  in  the  face.     The  bloody  rogues  were  driving 

381 


BROKE    OF    COVENDEN 

him  mad.  He  would  have  to  show  them  that  he  could 
strike  out  as  well  as  they.  Only  it  would  not  be  done 
from  behind  in  his  case.  There  would  be  no  springing  out 
of  corners  and  curtains  with  him,  no  stalking  on  tip-toe  to 
get  in  a  blow  when  the  victim  was  off  his  guard.  If  he 
struck,  the  miscreant  should  have  fair  warning  of  what 
was  in  store,  and  the  blow  should  be  straight  in  the 
teeth.  Indeed,  so  far  gone  was  our  hero  that  even  at 
this  moment  he  was  pre])ared  to  take  up  arms. 

He  could  bear  his  indignities  no  more.  First  was  he 
smitten  with  a  bitter  poverty,  a  fell  disease  loathed  as 
much  as  small-pox  or  black  plague  by  every  right-thinking 
Christian  Englishman.  Was  it  not  a  blackguard  act  on 
the  part  of  Destiny  !  Then,  upon  the  pretext  of  curing 
that  distemper,  a  crew  of  wretched  persons,  hired  ruffians 
of  the  baser  sort  in  the  service  of  the  arch-schemer,  who  in 
the  times  of  his  prosperity  would  never  have  gained 
admittance  to  his  threshold,  offered  him  gibes  and  insults 
in  the  guise  of  patent  medicines.  Then  his  son,  his  most 
cherished  possession,  for  whom  he  had  made  great  sacrifices, 
was  seduced  into  the  plot  against  him.  The  wretched 
fellow  had  been  entrapped  without  knowing  that  such  a 
thing  as  a  plot  was  in  existence.  Then  again,  his  wife, 
whom  these  thirty  years  he  had  trusted  implicitly,  seemed 
to  be  in  danger  of  falling  a  victim  to  these  diabolical 
agencies.  Had  not  she,  foohsh,  deluded  woman,  already 
offered  insults  to  his  intelligence  by  attempting  to  defend 
the  indefensible,  and  by  claiming  forgiveness  for  offences 
that  were  unpardonable  ?  Was  it  not  a  coward's  trick  that 
in  this  pass  to  which  they  had  brought  him  they  should 
alienate  his  natural  ally,  and  by  their  tricks  and  base 
hypnotic  devices  rob  him  of  the  sympathies  of  the  one 
person  in  the  world  to  whom  he  might  look  for  whole- 
hearted allegiance  ? 

And  now,  finally,  as  if  these  things  were  not  enough  to 
undermine  the  sane  spirit  of  a  man  and  cause  its  overthrow, 
they  had  arranged,  these  blackguard  conspirators  in  their 
cloaks  and  their  sombreros,  to  strike  a  blow  at  him  through 
the  medium  of  one  of  his  daughters.  A  man  and  a  father 
may  bear  up  his  head  in  the  midst  of  much.  He  may,  for 
example,  support  with  the  expenditure  of  a  few  groans  the 

?.82 


OUR    HERO    TAKES    HIS    BATTLE-AXE 

black  ingratitude  of  an  only  son.  But  a  daughter  is  too 
tender,  too  sacred.  The  infidelity  of  such  a  one,  as  in  the 
case  of  Lear,  goes  straight  to  the  heart  of  him,  and  strikes 
him  down.  One  of  the  veiled  emblems  round  whom  he  had 
swathed  the  Yashmak  of  an  overweening  pride,  that  the 
gross  eyes  of  the  world  should  not  sully  them  with  so  much 
as  a  glance,  had  been  corrupted  too,  and  was  become  an 
instrument  for  his  humiliation. 

The  letter  he  had  in  his  hand  had  been  placed  there  by 
his  wife.  It  was  addressed  to  his  youngest  daughter, 
presumably  with  the  child's  connivance.  It  bore  the 
signature  of  a  Cuttisham  bookseller.  Such  incidents  were 
of  almost  daily  occurrence  now.  They  were  part  of  the 
scheme.  The  indignities  that  had  been  recentl}^  put  upon 
him  were  incredible  ;  he  began  to  marvel  at  his  own 
patience.  But  they  were  telling  upon  him.  These 
malicious  machinations  of  an  Unknown  Hand  were  doing 
a  work,  although  not  the  one  perhaps  they  had  in  view. 
Every  time  he  was  baited  his  fibres  stiffened,  his  nature 
grew  more  implacable.  He  would  prove  the  mettle  that 
was  in  him  ;  he  fancied  that  his  endurance  would  not  be 
the  first  to  give  out. 

Still  that  trite  proverb  is  ours  that  those  whom  the 
gods  would  destroy  they  first  deprive  of  reason.  Broke 
began  to  feci  that  they  were  seeking  to  pluck  reason  out  of 
him  by  the  hand  of  humiliation.  They  were  not  content 
with  his  son,  the}^  must  take  his  daughter.  The  patronage 
of  Salmon  was  not  enough  ;  he  must  suffer  the  equality 
of  Breffit.  Really,  the  whole  business  was  becoming  too 
extravagant.  It  would  have  been  farce,  of  a  somewhat 
dubious  quahty  certainly,  if  the  pinch  of  his  circumstances 
had  not  for  ever  banished  mirth  from  his  lips.  He  felt  that 
laughter  was  demanded  of  him  ;  in  his  former  state  he 
must  have  laughed  cheerfully  and  heartily  ;  but  a  ruined 
man  loses  the  knack. 

It  was  while  our  first  or  principal  comedian  was  sur- 
rendered to  all  manner  of  these  reflections,  that  the  butler 
entered  to  say  that  a  Mr.  Porter  wished  to  see  him. 

"  Bring  kim  here." 

Mr.  Porter  was  brought  there  immediately.  He  came 
in  with  a  slight  air  of  self-possession,  a  part  of  his  natural 

383 


BROKE    OF    COVENDEN 

simplicity  or  part  of  his  obtuseness,  whichever  construction 
the  beholder  preferred  to  place  upon  it.  Instinctively 
Broke  noticed  it  against  him  as  part  of  his  effrontery.  He 
neither  offered  the  young  man  the  privilege  of  shaking  his 
hand  nor  did  he  invite  him  to  accept  a  seat. 

Our  hero  waited  with  a  grim  and  rather  grey  face,  some- 
what the  colour  of  cold  ashes,  for  the  visitor  to  state  his 
errand.  He  waited  with  a  certain  curiosity  as  to  what 
mode  he  would  adopt.  To  aid  him  by  speaking  a  word 
would  be  to  rob  the  thing  of  some  of  its  scientific  interest. 
Therefore  our  hero  stood  looking  at  him  steadily  with  a 
slightly  unnatural  calm.  A  man  entirely  devoid  of 
emotion  does  not  usually  hold  his  hands  pressed  to  his 
sides,  while  the  veins  stand  out  in  knots  and  bunches  on 
his  forehead.  And  all  the  time  the  Olympian  audience 
sitting  in  heaven,  those  earnest  followers  of  time-honoured 
and  legitimate  farce,  had  their  necks  craned  upon  this 
born  comedian,  not  missing  a  syllable  that  fell  ifrom  his 
mouth  nor  a  single  facial  gesture.  Indeed,  they  doted  on 
the  situation  itself,  and  on  the  perfectly  natural  develop- 
ments it  might  be  expected  to  produce.  Even  the  God  of 
Irony  himself,  that  perfectly  blase  old  dramatist,  might 
have  been  seen  to  throw  himself  back  contentedly  in  his 
fauteuil  in  the  author's  box,  with  a  simper  of  satisfaction 
for  his  own  work.  If  his  leading  comic  man,  who  was  work- 
ing so  famousl 5%  proved  equal  to  this  scene  which  had  been 
specially  written  for  him,  the  thing  was  bound  to  be  a 
success.  There  are  worse  things  than  being  an  author 
when  the  stalls  are  craning  eagerly  towards  a  choice  moment 
in  a  little  thing  of  your  own,  which  is  being  played  so 
beautifully  by  your  friend  the  manager  and  his  gifted 
company. 

"  I  don't  suppose,  Mr.  Broke,  you  know  why  I  am  here," 
his  visitor  began  in  the  clear-cut  tone  of  perfect  self- 
possession.  "  I  hope  you  will  not  find  my  explanation 
tedious.  One  there  must  be,  I  fear,  but  I  hope  you  will 
be  patient  with  me." 

Our  hero  cut  him  short.  Now  that  the  fellow  was 
speaking  it  was  more  than  ilesh  and  blood  could  endure 
to  stand  there  and  listen. 

'  f^re  you  the  writer  of  that  letter  ?  " 

384 


OUR    HERO   TAKES    HIS    BATTLE-AXE 

The  open  document  he  held  in  his  hand  he  gave  to  his 

visitor. 

"  I  am  ;  although  I  would  like  to  say  it  was  not  intended 
for  any  eyes  save  those  to  whom  it  was  addressed." 

■'  No  need  to  tell  me  that,"  said  our  hero  with  a  sour 
smile.  "  Perhaps — ah — you  will  have  the  goodness  to — 
ah — tell  me  what  you  mean  by  it." 

"  I  am  here  for  that  purpose,  sir.  The  facts  are  these " 

"  Stop  !  "  said  our  hero.  "  I  will  not  trouble  you.  If 
you — ah — want  to  explain  your  effrontery  I  may  say  at 
once  that — ah — nothing  you  may — ah — say  will  explain 
it  in  the  least." 

"  Effrontery?"  said  the  young  man  with  a  demure  smile. 
"  I  must  ask  you  to  forgive  me,  Mr.  Broke,  if  I  do  not  view 
my  conduct  in  that  somewhat  arbitrary  light.  I  have  the 
sanction  of  your  daughter  ;  the  sanction  of  myself ;  and 
I  am  not  entirely  without  means.  I  do  hope  you  will  be 
a  little  patient,  sir,  and  allow  me  to  make  a  statement  of 
the  case." 

"  The  case  calls  for  no  statement.  An  apology  may  not 
be  out  of  place,  although  it  is — ah — my  duty  to  warn  you 
beforehand  that  I  am  not  at  all  Hkely  to  accept  it." 

The  young  man  recorded  a  certain  bewilderment  in  the 
quick  play  of  his  features. 

"Apology?"  he  said.  "I  do  not  quite  understand. 
Forgive  me,  sir,  if  I  do  not  quite  see  the  necessity  for  an 
apology.  Indeed,  I  confess  that  in  this  connexion  the 
word  strikes  me  as  singular." 

The  impatience  of  the  first  comedian  was  manifest. 

"  An  ample  and  unreserved  apology  can  be — ah — the  only 
excuse  for  bringing  you  here  to-day.  I — ah — decline  to 
hear  any  defence  of  your  conduct." 

"  I  cannot  allow,  sir,  that  my  conduct  has  been  of  a 
kind  to  call  for  a  defence." 

A  sudden  grip  came  into  the  young  man's  voice  ;  there 
was  a  round  of  pleased  hand-claps  in  the  Olympian  Theatre. 

"  I — ah — decline  to  discuss  it  in  any  form.  It  is  inde- 
fensible." 

Our  hero  delivered  the  line  with  admirable  point.  But 
the  powerful  efforts  he  was  putting  forward  to  retain  a 
hold  upon  himself  were  only  partially  successful.  His  face 
grew  tawnier,  and  his  voire  shook. 

3^3  B  B 


BROKE    OF    COVENDEN     . 

The  younger  man  also  was  forfeiting  something  of  his 
former  Sf.renity.  By  an  earnest  self-mastery  he  had 
acquired  the  habit  of  tolerance.  .  But  his  nature  was  other- 
wise. Men  of  his  type  are  only  too  morbidly  susceptible. 
He  was  already  beginning  to  feel  that  Mr.  Broke  must  not 
trespass  too  far.  There  were  limits.  Beyond  them  one's 
duty  to  one's  self  entered  into  the  question.  Delia's  father 
was  becoming  intolerably  arrogant  and  overbearing  in  his 
manner. 

"  I  hope,  sir,"  he  said,  forcing  himself  to  be  calm,  "  you 
will  let  me  speak  of  this  matter.  I  may  say  at  once  it 
involves  your  daughter's  happiness." 

"  Stop  !  "  our  hero  commanded  him.  "  You  have  no 
right,  no  authority,  to  mention  my  daughter.  It  is — ah — 
gross  impertinence,  sir,  on  your  part.  I — ah — shall  feel 
obliged  if  you  will  please  understand  that  our  interview 
is  at  an  end." 

Crackles  of  laughter  and  salvoes  of  applause  ran  round 
the  Olympian  Theatre  at  this  brilliant  sally  by  the  first 
comedian. 

His  visitor  gave  back  a  step  ;  there  was  not  a  trace  of 
colour  in  his  face. 

"  Mr.  Broke,"  he  said,  "  even  allowing  for  the  fact  that 
the  relations  we  have  stood  in  hitherto  have  been  those  of 
employer  and  employed,  it  does  not  seem  to  me  that  this 
is  the  tone  one  man  is  privileged  to  use  to  another." 

"  Do  you  propose  to  teach  me  manners,  sir  ?  " 

His  grim  sneer  drew  a  cheer  of  approval  from  the  stalls. 

"  No  ;    I  only  ask  for  common  courtesy." 

Our  hero  recognized  a  cant  phrase  of  the  fellow's  kind. 
His  gorge  rose  at  it.  Persons  such  as  these  insulted  one 
grossly  in  one's  tenderest,  most  vulnerable  point,  and  then, 
by  way  of  justification,  they  put  in  a  plea  for  common 
courtesy.  Did  they  think  that  these  low  tricks  were  going 
to  be  played  off  on  him  ?  At  the  sound  of  the  cant  phrase 
the  mediaeval  devil  that  all  this  time  had  been  snugly 
coiled  up  in  his  heart,  suddenly  rattled  its  chain  to  infer 
that  it  was  ready  when  wanted.  Upon  his  honour,  if  the 
insolent  young  cad  did  not  take  himself  off  at  once,  it 
would  hardly  be  fair  to  liold  him  guilty  of  the  conse- 
quences ! 

:.S6 


OUR    HERO    TAKES    HIS    BATTLE-AXE 

"  I  advise  you  to  go,"  he  said  hoarsely. 

His  facial  play  was  much  admired  by  the  diverted 
audience  in  heaven. 

His  visitor  remained  immovable  and  erect,  with  a  rather 
fine-drawn  smile  on  his  white  face.  His  lips  were  tight, 
but  his  eyes  were  stretched  wide  to  their  full  limits.  A 
challenge  glittered  in  them.  It  was  cold  and  hard,  of  the 
lustre  of  steel. 

Our  hero's  blood  was  up ;  and  when  it  was  in  that 
interesting  condition  he  was  the  last  man  in  the  world  to 
have  consideration  for  others.  Besides,  in  Etiquette  for  the 
Elect,  the  invaluable  little  manual  of  behaviour  by  which 
he  regulated  his  life  and  conduct,  it  laid  it  down  in  the  form 
of  a  rough  maxim  that  the  persons  who  in  the  first  place 
were  entitled  to  his  consideration  were  surprisingly  few. 
A  Cuttisham  bookseller,  for  example,  was  not  included  in 
that  category. 

They  continued  to  confront  each  other  unflinchingly. 
Broke  had  indicated  the  necessity  for  Porter's  withdrawal. 
He  was  not  in  the  habit  of  repeating  his  phrases.  In  silence 
he  waited  for  him  to  comply.  But  his  visitor  did  not 
move  a  step. 

It  was  conceded  at  this  point  by  the  critics  among  the 
Distinguished  Audience  that  although  it  was  not  to  be 
expected  of  a  junior  that  he  should  play  with  the  finish 
and  aplomb  of  the  first  comedian,  who  was  perhaps  the 
chief  of  his  enchanting  profession,  the  young  one  was  doing 
very  well  for  a  beginner. 

"  I  am  here  to  speak,"  he  said,  "  and  speak,  sir,  I  must. 
It  is  of  the  first  importance.  The  opportunity  cannot 
recur." 

Broke  raised  his  chin  warningly.  Porter  still  betrayed 
no  disposition  to  quit  his  ground.  And  to  the  obstinate 
nothing  is  more  intolerable  than  the  exhibition  of  that 
quality  in  another.  Our  hero  was  confronted  by  the  sudden 
limit  to  his  patience.  It  yawned  a  very  precipice  under 
his  feet.  The  small  devil  in  his  heart  was  wriggling  fero- 
ciously to  slip  its  gaunt  little  neck  out  of  its  collar.  Its 
chain    had   rattled    unceasingly  for    five    minutes    past. 

"  I  speak  with  the  sanction  of  your  daughter,"  said  the 
young  man. 

"  You  lie,"  said  our  hero  trembling  with  fury.     "  How 

387 


BROKE    OF    COVENDEN 

dare  you — ah — ah — affront  me  to  my  face  ?  If  you  do 
not  get  out  now — at  once,  I  shall — ah — ah — be  under 
the — ah — ah — necessity  of  kicking  you  out.  You 
cad  !  " 

Applause  was  breaking  in  inconsequent  hand-claps 
from  the  cheaper  parts  of  the  Olympian  Theatre,  and  was 
being  hushed  down  by  the  stalls.  The  first  comedian 
was  surpassing  himself,  and  the  true  devotees,  scenting 
an  incursion  of  legitimate  drama,  were  determined  not  to 
miss  a  word. 

Porter  heard  dully.  His  senses  were  numbed  and 
faint,  but  in  his  head  the  blood  was  cool.  Not  a  hne  re- 
laxed in  his  tense  bearing.  In  him  had  been  aroused  the 
desperate  tenacity,  the  concentrated  determination  that 
was  the  keystone  of  his  nature.  He  did  not  move  an  inch, 
but,  livid  as  he  was,  he  met  the  unbridled  eyes  of  our 
hero  with  a  contemplative  gaze,  which  slowly  acquired 
a  tinge  of  pity. 

When  your  confirmed  hereditary  despot  encounters 
a  frank  and  rather  condescending  challenge  to  the  un- 
licensed will  which  is  his  sovereign  law,  there  is  only  one 
course  open,  only  one  means  left  to  him  by  which  he  can 
vindicate  it.     Our  hero  took  down  his  battle-axe. 

"  My  God  !  "  he  cried,  "  you  defy  me  in  my  own  house, 
you — you  counter-jumper.  You've  had  a  fair  warning. 
You  won't  take  it  ?     Suppose  you  take  this  !  " 

"  This  "  consisted  of  a  heavy  blow  with  his  clenched 
fist  full  on  the  mouth  of  his  visitor.  He  followed  it  up 
with  a  tremendous  clinch.  In  an  instant  he  had  got  one 
hand  as  tight  as  a  vice  on  the  lean  throat,  and  while  the 
weaker  man,  half-stunned  and  shattered  to  pieces  by  the 
blow,  made  semi-conscious  and  ineffectual  wriggles  like 
a  dying  rat,  Broke  hustled  and  dragged  him  to  the  door 
of  the  room.  Without  much  difficulty  he  got  him  over 
the  threshold  into  the  hall,  but,  arrived  there,  his  task 
became  rather  more  laborious. 

They  could  not  have  been  more  unequally  matched. 
Broke  was  a  full-blooded  son  of  the  soil,  lusty  of  thew, 
close  knit,  with  a  great  arching  chest ;  in  form  a  splen- 
did animal,  and  rejoicing  like  one  in  a  life  of  activity 
and  hardihood  in  the  open  air. 

388 


OUR    HERO    TAKES    HIS    BATTLE-AXE 

Porter,  on  the  other  hand,  was  of  the  type  that  is  bred 
in  towns.  He  seemed  to  present  an  appearance  of  arrested 
development  and  general  physical  incompetence.  He 
was  small-boned,  short-limbed,  muscleless  and  puny ; 
his  whole  frame  was  under-sized,  and  there  was  a  sugges- 
tion about  him  of  anaemia.  But  cis  soon  as  he  found 
himself  hustled  into  the  hall,  and  he  was  able  to  gain,  by 
the  aid  of  that  sense  which  had  not  already  been  knocked 
out  of  him,  a  clearer  conception  of  what  had  befallen  him, 
and  what  was  likely  further  to  befall  him,  his  ineffectual 
rat-like  wrigglings,  hitherto  merely  instinctive,  became 
endowed  with  purpose.  His  puny  hands  rose  in  the  air, 
and  the  fingers  of  them  clawed  about  at  large  like  the 
tentacles  of  an  octopus,  until  they  found  a  grip  on  Broke. 
His  thin  legs  writhed  and  coiled  themselves  around  the 
solid  oak-like  calves  of  his  adversary.  He  entered  into 
a  struggle  to  free  his  neck  from  the  grasp  of  iron  that  was 
choking  out  his  life,  and  in  the  effort  his  collar  and  the 
band  of  his  shirt  came  away  together,  and  allowed  him 
something  of  freedom. 

It  was  a  rather  ludicrous  scene  that  was  enacted  in  the 
hall  in  the  view  of  Lord  Bosket,  who  had  that  moment 
entered  it,  and  also  in  that  of  one  or  two  astonished  persons 
of  the  establishment.  Not  a  word  passed  between  the 
combatants.  Their  silence  was  ominous.  The  only 
sound  that  issued  from  their  strife  was  the  continuous 
scuffling  of  their  feet  as  they  slid  upon  the  highly  polished 
floor,  while  now  and  then  a  grunt  was  wrung  out  of  their 
tense  machinery. 

The  younger  and  weaker  man  had  not  a  chance,  and 
the  highest  evidence  to  be  adduced  of  his  resolution  was 
that  he  was  able  to  prolong  the  uncompromising  course 
of  his  exit.  He  was  prepared  to  yield  his  life  rather  than 
submit  to  be  run  out  at  that  distant  door,  but  the  blood 
in  his  arteries  was  as  water,  and  his  unaccustomed  muscles 
seemed  to  crumble  like  bread.  His  struggles  might  be 
superhuman,  but  they  were  of  no  more  avail  against  the 
contained  fury  that  encompassed  him  than  is  the  falHng 
earth  against  the  energy  of  Cyclops.  Their  clenched  forms 
swayed  this  way  and  that,  but  their  progress  was  ever 
in  one  direction. 

389 


BROKE    OF    COVENDEN 

The  process  was  sinister  in  its  quietude,  its  complete 
freedom  from  audible  sound.  In  the  anguish  of  contest 
their  eyeballs  might  be  breaking  from  their  sockets,  but 
it  was  a  fact  that  passed  unheeded  in  the  silence  and  the 
fury  with  which  they  grappled  to  one  another.  The 
nearer  Broke  got  his  man  to  the  door,  the  more  powerful 
grew  his  victim's  efforts  to  disengage  his  fists  from  the 
embrace  that  rendered  them  impotent.  If  his  very  life 
snapped  in  the  act  he  felt  he  must  get  one  blow  home, 
that  it  might  vindicate  him  in  some  kind.  There  was 
the  fury  in  him  of  the  savage  beast.  The  trained  intellect 
was  less  than  nothing  to  him  now.  Reason,  veneered 
over  with  the  civilized  arts,  forgot  to  exercise  its  functions. 
The  primeval  fiend  that  kirks  in  the  hearts  of  all  of  us,  and 
has  lurked  there  from  the  time  that  man  first  swung  upon 
branches  and  curled  his  tail  round  a  tree,  the  lust  of  hitting 
back,  possessed  him  ;  overthrew  the  kid  glove  precepts 
of  the  civilization  by  which  he  was  encompassed  ;  ren- 
dered him  hopelessly  drunken,  hopelessly  mad.  The 
scholar,  the  recluse,  the  philosopher,  the  maker  of  maxims 
for  the  guidance  of  his  less  disciplined  brethren,  the 
burner  of  the  midnight  oil,  the  scorner  of  pleasure,  the 
liver  of  laborious  days  was  become  a  wild  beast. 

This  s{)irit  of  the  incarnate  fiend  in  him,  however,  was 
of  no  avail.  Escape  from  the  concentrated  grip  that  was 
crushing  him  to  powder,  body  and  soul,  he  could  not. 
He  was  almost  demented,  and  snapping  with  his  red  teeth 
like  a  dog  by  the  time  he  approached  the  threshold  of  the 
hall  door  ;  but  no  matter  what  he  did  he  could  not  avoid 
the  crowning  ignominy  that  awaited  him.  He  would 
be  spurned  out  of  doors  with  a  kick  like  a  bag  of  shavings. 
The  blow  in  the  face  that  had  knocked  down  the  citadel 
of  his  intelligence,,  that  siow  work  of  years,  as  easily  and 
completely  as  a  house  of  cards,  must  be  swallowed,  must 
be  submitted  to.  It  had  changed  his  blood  into  fire,  but 
the  Deviser  of  his  clay  had  ruthlessly  withheld  from  him 
the  strength,  the  common  ph^^sical  strength,  to  requite 
his  foe  for  that  indignity.  As  he  swayed  that  moment 
close-knit  to  his  adversary  towards  the  farther  door,  life 
itself  would  ha\'e  been  but  a  little  price  at  which  to  buy 
the  satisfaction  of  feeling  his  raw  knuckles  beating  out 

390 


OUR    HERO    TAKES    HIS    BATTLE-AXE 

the  teeth  of  this  murderous  monster  in  the  guise  of  a  man 

who  had  beaten  out  his. 

He  had  spent  his  hfe  in  the  conquest  of  the  flesh.  He 
had  supposed  he  had  achieved  something  of  philosophy. 
He  was  not  a  participator,  an  actor  in  the  human  drama. 
It  was  his  place  to  sit  in  the  stalls,  in  the  manner  of  those 
Olympians  who  now  witnessed  his  present  performances, 
and  look  on  at  life  with  critical,  searching,  but  impartial 
eyes.  Was  he  not  a  seer,  an  inquirer  ?  Did  he  not 
believe  that  the  hope  of  man,  the  solution,  the  vindica- 
tion of  this  amazing  ironical  chimera,  for  which  we  havt 
so  many  names,  lay  by  the  arduous  road  of  knowledge  ? 
But  here,  in  this  crisis,  at  which  we  and  the  gods  who 
planned  his  destiny  observe  him,  he  would  have  given  the 
Old  Testament  and  the  New,  Homer  and  Shakespeare, 
Plato  and  Sophocles,  to  possess  the  gross  physical  force  to 
beat  his  enemy  to  earth,  and,  lying  prone,  to  have 
ground  his  heel  into  his  face. 

Nature  may  have  her  compensations,  but  her  exactions 
can  be  incredibly  bitter.  Has  she  not  a  habit  of  choos- 
ing the  pound  of  flesh  we  can  least  afford  to  dispense 
with,  or  worse,  of  levying  a  distress  for  it  at  the  season 
when  it  is  least  convenient  (or  us  to  meet  a  demand 
that  ought  never  to  be  made  ?  The  sedentary  life  of 
the  cabinet,  girt  about  by  those  fair  and  wonderful  things 
which  the  rude  defi.ements  of  the  world  have  not  the 
power  to  sully,  is  an  exquisite  thing,  but  it  precludes 
physical  efficiency.  The  unstable  limbs,  the  peering  eyes 
the  flaccid  muscles,  the  weak  nerves  are  the  price  that  is 
extorted.  It  is  not  given  to  the  reckise  to  become  the 
man  of  action.  He  was  called  on  now  to  pay  for  that 
inner  paradise  of  the  spirit  in  which  his  existence  had 
been  passed,  with  a  most  ignoble  bitterness.  At  the  last 
a  snarl  of  rage  was  wrung  out  of  him  to  find  himself 
inept.  It  was  the  snarl  of  a  ferocious  cur  as,  wnth  tongue 
protruding,  it  rolls  over  to  die.  He  was  mad  and  drunk 
and  blind  by  now.  The  groaning  engines  of  his  heart 
vibrated  until  he  could  not  breathe.  He  nuzzled  to  his 
enemy,  and  tried  to  tear  him  with  his  teeth,  since  his 
feeble  hands  could  not  help  him.  His  inarticulate  fury 
was  distilled  through  his  throat  in  httle  sobs,  but  nothing 

391 


BROKE    OF    COVENDEN 

could  save  him.  The  stronger  man  had  both  hands  now 
upon  his  neck.  He  shook  him  Hke  a  rat.  He  shook  him 
until  his  bones  seemed  to  rattle  against  his  nerves,  and 
his  eyes  and  tongue  protruded.  Afterwards  he  cast  him 
from  him.  He  spurned  him  in  contained  fury  out  of  doors, 
bleeding,  to  the  earth. 

Our  hero  then  turned  his  back  upon  the  figure  sprawling 
on  the  gravel  outside  his  residence.  His  dilated  face  was 
confronted  by  those  of  the  excited  servants  and  Lord 
Bosket ;  and  as  with  chest  hugely  heaving  and  jowl  in- 
flamed he  took  from  his  pocket  his  bandana  hand- 
kerchief and  gravely  mopped  away  the  signs  of  his  dis- 
composure, a  perfect  roar  of  applause  greeted  him  in 
the  Olympian  Theatre,  though  he  heard  it  not,  and  the 
God  of  Iron}'  in  the  author's  box,  allowing  his  grim  visage 
to  relax,  grinned  upon  him  in  grateful  admiration.  The 
behaviour  of  his  leading  comic  man  in  this  scene  had  made 
the  play.  He  feared  nothing  now  ;  success  was  assured  ; 
and  impervious  in  that  contentment,  he  permitted  two 
of  his  friends  to  link  their  arms  in  his  and  lead  him 
out  of  the  box  to  celebrate  his  good  fortune  in  a  bottle  of 
Perrier  Jouet  '87  at  the  refreshment  bar  adjoining. 

"  My  God!  Edmund,  you've  about  done  for  the  feller." 

Our  hero,  having  mopped  a  face  and  neck  on  which  the 
veins  were  still  swollen  a  good  deal,  his  habitual  heavy- 
footed  serenity  seemed  to  be  restored  to  him.  At  least 
he  greeted  his  brother-in-law  with  excellent  compo- 
sure. 

"Hullo,  Charles,  how  do  ?  Porson,  you  had  better 
help  the  fellow  to  get  up,  and — ah — see  to  it  that  he  goes 
about  his  business." 

Lord  Bosket,  however,  was  inclined  to  see  a  more  sinister 
side  to  the  affair. 

"He  don't  move,"  hp  said.  "We  had  better  go  and 
give  him  a  leg  up.  I  don't  know  who  he  is  or  what  he's 
done,  but  I  call  him  sand.  Took  his  gruel  well.  He's 
only  a  featherweight,  but  he  was  game  right  up  to  the 
finish.  I  like  to  see  that.  Give  me  the  feller  or  the  boss 
that  don't  know  when  he's  beat.  It  struck  me,  Edmund, 
that  you  were  a  bit  severe,  considerin'  he  is  not  more  than 
eight  stone  nothing.     He  is  not  in  your  class,  you  know, 

392 


OUR    HERO    TAKES    HIS    BATTLE-AXE 

at  all.     You  are  fifteen,  if  you  are  a  pound.     What's  he 
been    doin'  ?     Poachin'  ?     Poisonin'    foxes  ?  " 

While  Lord  Bosket  was  making  these  remarks  and 
putting  forward  these  inquiries,  the  butler,  a  footman 
his  lordship's  coachman  who  had  driven  the  dogcart 
that  had  carried  him  thither,  a  gardener  or  two,  and 
several  odd  men  from  the  stables,  formed  a  group 
round  the  man  lying  motionless  with  his  face  staining  the 
gravel.  White-cheeked  housemaids  peered  out  of  the 
upper  windows.  Broke,  however,  heedless  as  to  the 
fate  of  his  victim,  had  betaken  himself  back  to  the 
library. 

Lord  Bosket  now  came  bustling  through  the  group, 
and  seeing  that  the  form  they  surrounded  was  apparently 
insensible,  and  that  blood  was  issuing  out  of  it,  he  knelt 
down  on  the  gravel  with  an  air  of  professional  assurance 
bred  of  experience  in  many  glove  fights.  He  addressed 
the  unconscious  man,  and  tried  to  raise  him  in  his  arms. 
Not  being  able  to  do  so,  he  looked  up  at  the  onlookers  in 
an  agitated  manner,  and  said — 

"  We  want  a  doctor.  Somebody  go  and  get  a  doctor, 
can't  you  ?     I  don't  Hke  it  at  all." 


393 


CHAPTER  XXXII 

Rencounter  between  a  Dogcart  and  an 
Omnibus 

THEY  picked  up  the  young  man  and  propped  his  head 
against  a  corner  of  the  stone  balustrade  that  ran 
at  right  angles  to  the  door.  The  appearance  he  made  was 
so  unfortunate  that  Lord  Bosket  became  more  agitated  than 
he  was  before. 

"Get  a  doctor,  can't  you,  somebody  ?  Of  course  there's 
not  one  about.  They  are  the  same  as  the  police — never 
there  when  you  want  'em." 

There  was  no  need  to  loosen  the  young  man's  collar, 
because  in  the  struggle  it  had  been  torn  free.  Water  was 
sent  for  ;  but  before  that  primitive  remedy  had  arrived, 
to  the  immense  relief  of  Lord  Bosket  and  that  of  the  by- 
standers, consciousness  showed  signs  of  returning.  Presently 
Porter  opened  his  eyes.  In  addition  to  the  distressing 
condition  of  his  mouth,  blood  was  flowing  freely  frcm  a 
deep  cut  in  the  forehead  upon  which  he  had  pitched  in  his 
exit.  He  certainly  made  a  sorry  figure  with  the  blood 
dripping  rapidly  into  his  eyes,  and  smearing  the  vivid  pallor 
of  his  cheeks. 

The  first  thing  of  which  he  was  conscious  was  that  he 
was  being  enveloped  in  something  warm  and  wet.  The 
innate  repugnance  to  blood  to  be  found  in  men  of 
his  type  was  so  strong  that  he  nearly  became  insen- 
sible again.  It  was  only  when  he  awoke  to  the  fact  that 
he  was  the  centre  of  a  group,  and  that  anxious  and  startled 
fac<  5  were  directed  upon  him,  that  he  showed  signs  of 
regaining  self-control.     In   tlie  shock  of  this  second  dis- 

394 


A    DOGCART    AND    AN    OMNIBUS 

covery  he  stumbled  to  his  feet.  In  the  act,  however,  he 
nearly  fell,  and  Lord  Bosket  took  it  on  himself  to  support 
him. 

"  It  is  no  use,  my  lad,"  said  Delia's  uncle,  taking  hold  of 
him.  "  You'll  have  to  have  that  head  and  mouth  seen  to, 
and  thank  God  it's  no  worse.  Get  him  a  chair  somebody, 
can't  you  ?  and  get  him  a  drop  o'  brandy.  Sit  down  there 
my  lad  ;  and  don't  try  standin'  until  we've  fixed  you  up 
a  bit.  As  damned  nasty  a  cut  as  ever  I  saw.  Sit  down, 
my  lad,  and  I'll  tie  this  handkerchief  round  it  temporarily; 
and  then  I'll  drive  you  into  Cuttisham  and  let  a  vet  put 
a  few  stitches  in  it  for  you.  Of  course  there  isn't  one  in 
this  God- forsaken  hole  !  " 

The  sufferer,  however,  did  not  show  a  disposition  to 
accept  services  of  any  one.  Several  times  he  made  inef- 
fectual efforts  to  escape  from  the  group,  and  several  times 
assured  them  feebly  that  "  he  was  all  right." 

"  Yes,  my  lad,  you  look  all  right,  you  do.  But  this  will 
put  the  fear  of  the  Lord  into  you,  what  ?  " 

The  awe-inspiring  agent  in  question  proved  to  be  brandy, 
which  had  now  arrived,  and  Lord  Bosket  measured  it  out 
with  paternal  gravity,  and,  with  a  firmness  that  was  quite 
unusual,  insisted  on  his  drinking  it.  He  then  drank  the 
remainder  himself  with  a  far  greater  aplomb  than  the 
patient  had  exhibited,  announcing  to  the  onlookers,  as  he 
did  so,  that  "  these  things  always  upset  him." 

Nature  was  having  her  turn  now  with  Porter.  Fortu- 
nately, Lord  Bosket's  tone  was  so  solicitous,  and  his 
concern  so  evident,  that  in  the  end  the  shaken  and 
demoralized  man  surrendered  to  him  entirely.  In  any 
case,  he  knew  it  was  not  in  his  power  to  make  an 
effectual  protest. 

Our  friend  having  bandaged  personally  the  deep  cut 
near  the  temple  with  several  large  handkerchiefs  and  the 
moderate  skill  at  his  command,  called  to  his  man  to  bring 
the  dogcart  forward.  While  this  vehicle  was  forthcoming 
he  took  out  his  pocket-book  and  selected  from  it  two  crisp 
pieces  of  paper. 

"  Here's  a  tenner,  my  boy.  That'll  help  to  put  your 
head  all  right,  eh  ?     I  respect  you." 

As  the  yotmg  man  was  in  no  condition  to  accept  this 

395 


BROKE    OF    COVENDEN 

specific  for  a  broken  mouth  and  a  lacerated  forehead,  our 
friend  crushed  them  into  one  of  the  pockets  of  his  coat. 
The  cart  having  now  been  drawn  up  in  a  convenient 
manner,  he  said — 

"  Hold  him  up  while  I  get  in.  Then  give  him  a  hand, 
and  mind  how  you  do  it.  The  poor  devil's  not  quite 
himself.  Anybody  know  who  he  is  ?  I  shall  look  well 
drivin'a  poacher  or  a  feller  of  that  kidney  into  Cuttisham, 
I  shall,  but  I  expect  that's  about  the  ticket.  Never 
mind,  Edmund  should  not  be  so  rough.  Besides,  I  don't 
care  who  the  feller  is,  or  what  he  is,  he's  grit." 

At  this  point  the  butler  moved  forward  to  his  lordship 
with  an  air  of  great  mystery. 

"It  is  the  young  man,  my  lord,  who  used  to  come  to 
teach  Miss  Delia,"  he  said  in  a  diplomatic  undertone. 

"  Didn't  know  there  was  a  young  man  who  used  to  come 
to  teach  Miss  Deha." 

"  Oh,  yes,  my  lord.  Her  ladyship  used  to  send  a  young 
college  gentleman  to  teach  her  Greek  and  Latin." 

"  Nonsense,  Person.     This  can't  be  the  feller." 

"  I  beg  your  lordship's  pardon,  but  it  is  impossible  for 
me  to  be  mistaken." 

"  Nonsense,  my  boy.  Mr.  Broke  would  not  be  such  a 
damned  fool." 

The  august  old  gentleman  pressed  closer  to  his  lord- 
ship's ear  to  impart  an  even  more  pregnant  item  of  infor- 
mation. 

"  What — what !  "  cried  Delia's  uncle,  trying  to  baffle  his 
own  credulity. 

He  gave  vent  to  his  astonishment  by  straddling  his  legs 
apart,  thrusting  his  hands  deep  into  the  pockets  of  his 
breeches,  looking  steadily  down  his  nose,  and  pursing  his 
lips.  He  occupied  this  attitude  for  the  best  part  of  a 
minute  before  he  recorded  his  bewilderment  in  his  favourite 
formula. 

"  Well,  I'm  damned." 

The  immediate  business  in  hand  having  then  recurred 
to  him,  he  jumped  into  the  dogcart  and  superintended 
the  entrance  into  that  high  and  awkward  vehicle  of  the 
still  only  half-sensible  Porter.  As  he  took  the  reins  he 
called  out  to  his  man — 

396 


A    DOGCART   AND    AN    OMNIBUS 

*'  I  shan't  be  back  here,  to-day,  Thompson.  Borrow  a 
mount  and  ride  home." 

The  dogcart  started  briskly  on  its  way.  It  had  not 
left  the  park  gates  of  Covenden  far  behind  when  an  old 
and  familiar  vehicle  hove  in  sight.  It  was  the  ramshackle 
omnibus  returning  from  the  garden-party.  A  sly  but 
inveterate!  y  humorous  leer  appeared  in  the  face  of  Lord 
Bosket  when  this  equipage  waddled  into  the  middle  dis- 
tance. He  touched  up  his  horse,  and  determined  to  waste 
no  time  in  getting  past  it.  But  the  interior  of  the  quaint 
chariot  was  furnished  with  seven  pairs  of  feminine  eyes. 
Therefore  his  chance  of  escaping  notice  was  about  as  remote 
as  it  could  be. 

"  Why,  it  is  Uncle  Charles!"  exclaimed  the  occupants 
excitedly  one  to  another.  "  And,  oh,  there  has  been  an 
accident !  There  is  a  man  with  him  who  is  bleeding  and 
smothered  in  bandages." 

Delia  was  next  but  one  to  the  door.  In  a  moment  she 
was  up  and  clutching  at  the  handle.  But  quick  as  she 
was  her  mother  was  quicker.  She  rose  in  almost  the  same 
instant  and  caught  her  by  the  wrist. 

"  Sit  down,  child,"  she  said  quietly. 

Delia  swayed  a  moment  irresolute  with  the  lumbering 
motions  of  the  vehicle.  She  looked  at  her  mother  with 
something  rather  remarkable  in  her  face. 

"  Sit  down,  child." 

The  tone  was  even  quieter  than  before. 

Deha  obeyed.  By  this  the  dogcart  had  passed  out  of 
sight. 


397 


CHAPTER  XXXIII 

Tribulations  of  a  middle-aged  Peer  at  the 
Hands  of  Woman 

BY  the  time  Delia  reached  home  things  had  resumed 
their  normal  shape.  Visible  evidences  there  were 
none  to  testify  to  the  occurrence  of  the  extraordinary. 
In  the  demoralized  condition  of  her  mind  she  was 
almost  impelled  to  make  secret  inquiries  of  the  servants  ; 
but  reflection  showed  her  the  impossibility  of  this 
course.  Indeed  it  was  a  solace  to  think  that  this  might 
be  a  matter  of  which  they  had  no  cognisance.  But 
whether  they  had  or  not,  and  whatever  the  agonizing 
curiosity  that  was  devouring  her,  she  could  not  admit  them 
to  her  confidence  on  such  a  subject. 

By  evening  she  was  persuaded — such  was  the  ominous 
silence  that  was  maintained — that  she  must  await 
the  next  visit  of  her  Uncle  Charles.  Never  a  week 
went  by  without  his  putting  in  an  appearance  at  Covenden 
if  he  happened  to  be  at  home.  Whatever  it  cost 
her  to  withstand  those  pangs  that  seemed  to  be  biting 
her  heart  into  pieces,  he  was  the  only  person  she  could 
consult  legitimately.  She  might  take  the  extreme  course 
of  putting  a  question  point  blank  to  her  father,  but  he 
would  hardly  be  likely  to  answer  it  ;  and  if  he  did  answer 
it  in  the  terms  she  foresaw  he  must,  would  not  a  grave,  a 
terrible  ordeal  be  j)resented  to  them  both  ?  Her  curiosity 
liacl  mounted  to  a  passion,  it  was  gnawing  her  to  death  ; 
Init  with  a  young  girl  delicacy  is  inveterate. 

Tlie  bleeding  man  covered  with  bandages  she  had  seen 
in   the   dogcart   had    confirmed    her  darkest    forebodings. 


TRIBULATIONS    AT   HANDS   OF    WOMAN 

Also  of  late  she  had  come  to  know  the  almost  awful  ferocity 
of  her  father's  nature  when  the  savage  in  him  was  aroused. 
In  her  heart  she  felt  it  was  not  necessary  to  inquire  what 
had  taken  place  in  the  interval  between  her  lover's  coming 
to  that  house  and  his  going  from  it.  But  the  case  was 
too  grave  for  circumstantial  evidence.  She  was  as  sure 
as  that  there  was  a  God  in  heaven  that  her  father  was 
guilty;  but  there  was  a  sheer  physical  repugnance  in  her  to 
convict  until  the  positive  evidence  of  his  crime  was  laid 
before  her  eyes.  Natural  reverence  for  her  father,  which, 
when  all  was  said,  was  still  paramount  in  her,  demanded 
that  he  should  be  given  the  benefit  of  every  doubt.  That 
is  not  the  way  of  her  sex  as  a  rule.  Instinct  prompting, 
it  will  take  inordinately  short  cuts  to  the  most  inaccessible 
of  conclusions.  But  in  the  case  of  her  father,  so  long  as 
no  eyewitness  could  be  brought  forward  who  was  prepared 
to  attest  to  what  had  taken  place,  she  must  not  dare  to 
judge  him.  And  let  it  be  urged  that  this  unfeminine 
forbearance  on  the  part  of  his  youngest  daughter  was  one 
of  the  amplest  compliments  the  character  of  our  hero  ever 
received. 

Nearly  a  week  went  by  before  Lord  Bosket  came  to 
Covenden  again. 

During  that  period  his  unhappy  young  niece  hardly 
laid  her  head  on  her  pillow.  Neither  day  nor  night  could 
bring  ease  to  her  thoughts.  Nothing  could  appease 
the  morbid  curiosity  that  corrupted  her  heart.  As  the 
days  passed  she  felt  she  must  hear  the  truth  or  she 
must  die.  There  was  no  source  open  to  her  from  which 
to  acquire  information.  It  was  not  impossible  to  write 
to  her  lover.  In  these  black  days  she  hardly  dared  to 
think  of  him.  Her  first  wish  was  to  shut  that  bleeding 
bandaged  image  of  him  out  of  her  mind.  It  was  a 
hideous  nightmare  to  which  her  imagination  must 
not  revert. 

In  the  meantime  the  inquiries  she  could  not  bring  herself  to 
prosecute  had  probably  been  made  by  others.  For  at  least, 
dating  from  that  tragic  afternoon,  life  among  her  sisters 
would  have  been  intolerable  had  she  not  been  possessed  by 
one  all-dominating  thought.  She  suffered  a  completer 
ostracism  than  ever.     They  neither  spoke  to  her,  nor  looked 

399 


BROKE    OF    COVENDEN 

at  her  ;  they  shut  the  door  of  their  common-room  against 
her  ;  they  avoided  her  sedulously  at  meals.  She  was 
wholly  debarred  their  pastimes  and  intercourse  ;  and  so 
thorough-going  they  could  be  when  they  chose,  that  like 
the  name  of  their  brother,  that  of  their  youngest  sister 
was  banished  from  their  lips.  Their  behaviour  was  formu- 
lated on  the  admirable  principle  that  they  had  not  an 
existence  at  all.  If  they  met  Delia  descending  the  stairs 
as  they  were  ascending  them  they  refrained  from  looking 
at  her. 

Her  mother  remained  the  same  as  usual.  Her  perpetual 
smile  had  as  little  meaning  as  ever,  and  her  epigrammatic 
silences  as  much.  In  her  daily  demeanour,  a  miracle 
indeed  of  candour  and  suavity,  there  was  not  the 
twitching  of  an  eyelid  to  suggest  that  there  had  been 
an  incident.  It  was  just  as  if  their  relations  had  remained 
exactly  as  they  had  been  always.  She  might  have  been 
quite  unversed  in  the  art  of  suppressing  letters  ;  and 
intellectually  incapable  of  reading  the  expression  on  the 
face  of  her  daughter  when  she  held  her  by  the  wrist  to 
prevent  her  from  jumping  from  the  omnibus. 

The  manner  of  her  father  was  not  much  more  eloquent. 
Maybe  he  was  grimmer  than  of  yore,  and  sufficed  more  to 
himself.  His  great  laugh  was  hardly  ever  heard  now  from 
the  head  of  the  table  ;  something  seemed  to  be  lacking  in 
the  old  spirit  of  camaraderie  between  himself  and  his  girls. 
His  frank  delight  in  them  was  hardly  so  articulate  ;  the 
same  boyish  admiration  did  not  beacon  out  of  his  eyes 
when  he  referred  to  them  in  the  presence  of  others  ;  he 
no  longer  seemed,  to  Delia  at  least,  all  tenderness  and  aU 
simplicity.  To  her  remorseless  eyes  it  was  as  though  he 
sat  with  a  wolf  gnawing  at  his  vitals.  The  greyness  of 
his  hair  had  become  much  more  palpable  of  late  ;  his 
cheeks  were  not  so  ruddy,  and  had  lines  in  them  where 
they  hung  loose  and  flabby  ;  he  was  ageing  rapidly.  Nor 
did  he  carry  his  massive  head  quite  as  of  yore.  It  had 
lost  a  little  of  its  military  trimness.  His  daughters  were 
wont  to  regale  their  imaginations  by  tracing  a  slightly 
imperial  hauteur  in  him.  They  could  not  have  done  it 
now.  Everything  about  him  was  become  creased  and  re- 
laxed, where  formerly  it  was  so  alert,  so  finely  braced,  so 

400 


TRIBULATIONS  AT  HANDS  OF  WOMAN 

full  of  self-esteem.  Delia  would  have  been  shocked  by  this 
change  in  her  father,  wrought  in  a  few  weeks,  had  it  now 
been  possible  for  her  to  be  shocked  by  anything. 

At  last  the  morning  came  when  the  child  could  entertain 
the  hope  of  setting  all  doubts  at  rest.  Her  Uncle  Charles 
waddled  in  among  them  just  as  they  were  finishing  break- 
fast. His  comings  and  goings  were  as  casual  as  anything 
could  be.  He  was  there  at  all  times  and  seasons,  the  first 
thing  in  the  morning,  the  last  thing  at  night,  so  that  in  the 
process  of  time  a  bedroom  had  become  dedicated  to  his 
service,  where  the  sheets  were  kept  always  aired  for  cases 
of  emergency.  He  held  a  latch-key  of  the  hall-door  of 
Covenden  against  those  occasions  when  he  had  no  desire 
"to  go  home  and  face  the  music  "  ;  and  it  was  no  infre- 
quent thing  for  his  feet  to  be  heard  stumbling  up  the  stairs 
of  his  brother-in-law's  residence  in  the  small  hours  of  the 
morning. 

"  Top  o'  the  mornin',"  he  said,  as  he  took  a  seat  at 
the  table  in  their  midst,  and  summoned  the  assiduous 
Porson  by  the  simple  expedient  of  holding  up  a  finger. 

"  You  can  get  me  a  mornin'  prayer,  Porson." 

As  Porson  retired  on  this  ecclesiastical  mission  he  was 
peremptorily/  recalled. 

"  Did  I  say  a  devilled  kidney  as  well,  Porson  ?  ** 

"  No,  my  lord." 

"  Well,  I  meant  to.  A  mornin'  prayer  and  a  devilled 
kidney." 

Porson  had  proceeded  but  a  little  farther  on  his  pious 
errand  when  he  was  recalled  even  more  peremptorily. 

"  I'll  have  the  prayer,  Porson,  but  never  mind  the 
kidney.  I've  got  a  tongue  this  mornin'  hke  the  back  of  a 
hedgehog." 

Porson  bowed. 

He  got  away  all  right  on  this  occasion  as  far  as  that 
temple  of  religion,  the  side-board,  where  he  was  adjured 
to  "  Look  sharp,  there's  a  good  feller  !  " 

A  "  mornin'  prayer  "  proved  to  be  a  polite  euphemism 
for  a  large  tumbler,  a  decanter  of  whisky,  and  a  bottle  of 
Apollinaris  water.  Lord  Eosket  proceeded  to  mix  these 
ingredients  in  the  nice  proportions  amenable  to  a  palate 
that  was  "  like  the  back  of  a  hedgehog."      After  imbibing 

401  cc 


BROKE    OF    COVENDEN 

them  with  the  solemn  gusto  that  an  earnest  nature 
takes  in  a  religious  rite,  he  went  on  to  register  his 
customary  formal  complaint  against  the  quality  of  the 
whisky. 

"  I  only  lodge  the  objection,  you  know,  as  a  mere  matter 
o'  form,  although  they  do  say  that  constant  droppin's  will 
wear  away  the  Guildhall.  But  we  get  no  forrarder  on 
this  subject.  I  never  take  a  drink  in  this  house  but 
what  I've  had  to  complain  to  the  Stewards.  It  is  such  a 
little  matter  I  should  ha'  thought  something  could  be  done. 
Is  it  red-tape  or  what  ?  " 

It  was  to  be  gathered  from  Lord  Bosket's  particularly 
querulous  air  that  his  domestic  intercourse  had  suffered  yet 
another  check  to  its  harmony. 

"  The  missis  is  back  from  town  on  the  rampage. 
And  all  about  nothin',  mark  you.  There'd  be  an  excuse 
for  her  if  I  was  a  dead  wrong  'un,  which  I'm  not.  She 
can't  say  that  I  haven't  always  been  a  good  husband  to 
her.  And  what  do  you  suppose  it's  all  about  this 
time  ?  Why,  simply  because  while  she  was  away  I 
arranged  a  little  glove  fight  in  the  home  close,  a 
snug  little  mill  and  nothin'  more.  Quite  an  informal 
little  affair,  don't  you  know,  between  two  middle- 
weights  of  the  district  for  a  small  purse  subscribed  by 
myself  and  a  pal  or  two.  We  were  goin'  to  have  no  press, 
no  publicity,  no  nothin'.  It  was  goin'  to  be  quite  private, 
tickets  by  invitation,  and  everything  kept  very  select,  and 
all  as  right  as  rain.  But,  God  bless  my  soul,  you  should 
ha'  seen  the  missis  when  she  got  wind  of  it.  It  was  a 
degradation  to  the  highest  and  purest  instincts  of  the 
lord-knows-what  !  One-sided  I  call  it.  I  stand  her  poets 
without  a  word,  absolutely  without  a  word,  mark  you. 
We've  even  had  anarchists  and  labour-leaders  and  Fenians 
in  the  house  before  now,  but  I  can't  even  go  rattin'  in  a 
ditch  with  a  terrier  pup  on  a  Sunday  mornin'  but  what  she 
calls  down  fire  from  heaven.  And  that's  not  all ;  she's 
got  another  grievance  now,-  dear  old  thing.  Somebody 
has  told  her  a  cock-and-bull  story  about  Billy  havin' 
resigned  his  commission  in  the  Blues,  and  she  throws  it 
at  me,  funny  old  thing,  that  I  have  kept  it  from  her.  It 
was  no  use  my  sayin'  that  it  was  all  my  eye.     She  says  it 

402 


TRIBULATIONS    AT   HANDS    OF   WOMAN 

is  a  conspiracy  to  keep  her  in  the  dark.  You  had  better 
let  her  know,  Jane,  she's  found  a  mare's  nest.  But  her 
common-sense  ought  to  tell  her." 

"  On  the  contrary,  Charles,  I  am  afraid  Emma  is  very 
well  informed,"  said  his  sister.  "  We  could  not  afford 
to  keep  him  in  the  Blues  any  longer.  Too  expensive, 
vou  know." 

"  What,  my  gell  ?  " 

Upon  a  repetition  of  the  news  his  jaw  was  seen  to  drop. 

"  That's  a  nice  how  d'ye  do.  Rough  on  a  feller  that  is, 
especially  a  young  feller.  He  oughtn't  to  ha'  done  that. 
Why  didn't  you  speak  to  me  about  it  ?  I  daresay  I  could 
ha'  done  something  in  an  important  matter  like  that." 

"You  are  very  good,  Charles,  but  we  really  felt  we  could 
not  hold  ourselves  indebted  to  you  to  any  further  extent. 
You  have  been  too  generous  already." 

"  If  I  can't  give  my  own  nephew  a  leg  up  now  and 
then  it's  a  pity.  He's  the  only  lad  I've  got ;  and  for 
him  to  do  a  thing  like  that  touches  me  a  lot  more  than  a 
few  pounds  a  year  towards  his  keep  would  ha'  done." 

"  That  only  covers  part  of  the  motive.  His  general 
conduct  of  late  has  left  much  to  be  desired." 

"  The  feller's  young.  He's  only  a  bo3^  Let  every 
colt  have  its  head  a  bit  at  the  start,  I  say,  especially 
if  there's  blood  in  him.  He'll  only  take  it  if  you  don't. 
Such  talk  is  not  hke  you  and  Edmund  ;  I've  always  given 
you  the  credit  for  bein'  plain  sensible  people  who  know 
what's  what.  My  ideas  aren't  worth  much  beside  those 
of  a  clever  beggar  like  you,  Jane,  of  course;  but  if  you 
aren't  right  off  it  this  time  I'm  no  judge  of  a  boss.  I 
should  ha'  thought  Edmund  would  ha'  known  better.  It 
is  a  very  serious  ihing  for  a  young  feller  at  his  tim.e  of  life, 
let  me  tell  you.  And  what's  he  goin'  into  now — the 
police  force  ?  " 

"  He  has  left  the  service  for  good." 

"  WTia-a-a-t  !  " 

"  He  sailed  for  South  Africa,  I  believe,  last  Wednesday 
week.  He  is  going  to  farm  or  to  prospect  for  gold,  or 
something  of  that  sort." 

Lord  Bosket  sat  bolt  upright  in  his  chair,  with  his  glass 
suspended  mid-way  to  his  lips. 

403 


BROKE    OF   COVENDEN 

"  That's  won  it '  "  was  all  he  could  say. 
The  silence  around  the  breakfast  table  was  rather  pain* 
ful. 

"  A  fine  lad  like  that !  I  don't  know  how  you  could. 
You  had  no  right  to  let  him  go.  That  lad's  mine  as  much 
as  he  is  yours,  by  God  he  is  !     I  can't  get  over  it." 

The  face  of  Billy's  uncle  was  an  abject  blank.  The 
silence  of  all  around  him  remained  a  Httle  pitiful. 

"  I  feel  as  though  I  want  to  blub,"  he  said.  "  You  have 
no  idea  how  it  touches  me,  or  you  wouldn't  ha'  done  it. 
And  this  Maud  Wayling  scheme  ;  all  off — what  ?  " 
"  It  is,"  said  Mrs.  Broke  impassively. 
For  a  time  her  brother  rocked  himself  to  and  fro  in  his 
chair,  repeating  at  intervals  in  an  undertone  all  sorts  of 
odd  phrases,  and  punctuated  them  by  aimlessly  nodding 
his  head.  The  number  of  times  he  did  this  gloomily  and 
dispassionately  it  would  be  hard  to  say,  but  he  appeared 
to  derive  a  certain  solace  from  this  incantation. 

"It  is  the  rottenest  thing  I  ever  heard  in  my  life,"  he 
broke  out  at  last  with  vehemence.  "  What  I  want  to 
know  is,  why  did  not  somebody  tell  me?  I  would  ha' 
played  old  Harry  rather  than  it  should  have  happened. 
I  may  be  UTong,  Jane,  but  this  business  looks  to  me  as 
though  you  and  Edmund  have  been  cutting  off  your  noses 
to  spite  your  faces.  That's  how  it  strikes  me,  and  let  me 
tell  you  that's  how  it  will  strike  others.  It's  not  Uke  you." 
Lord  Bosket's  distress  was  very  real  and  unbridled. 
That  of  his  hearers  must  have  been  quite  as  acute  as  his 
own,  probably  more ;  but  tact,  that  thrice-blessed  quality, 
had  no  existence  in  his  forth-right  and  ingenuous  soul. 
Broke  might  sit  grim  and  grey  in  an  inaccessible  silence  ; 
his  wife  might  fence  and  parry,  and  make  obvious  attempts 
to  turn  the  conversation  ;  the  girls  might  all  be  staring 
straight  in  front  of  them  with  faces  that  grew  white  and 
scarlet  by  turns  ;  but  signals  such  as  these  were  not  for 
Lord  Bosket.  As  was  usual  with  him,  when  he  was  in 
pain  he  demanded  that  it  should  be  shared  by  others,  in 
the  same  liberal  manner  that  he  was  prepared  to  take  the 
sufferings  of  other  jieople  on  the  shoulders  of  himself. 

"  I  can't  get  over  it.     I  tell  you  it  is  the  rottenest  thing 
I  ever  heard.     I  wonder  if  it  was  of  his  own  free  will.     I 

404 


TRIBULATIONS  AT  HANDS  OF  WOMAN 

wonder  if  he  shied  at  Maud  Wayling.  I'd  lay  a  thousand 
to  five  he  did.     Did  he  shy  at  her,  Jane,  and  run  away  ?  " 

"  I  can  hardly  go  into  details  now,  Charles,  but  you  can 
rest  assured  that  you  shall  hear  them  all  in  due  season." 

"  I'm  not  goin'  to  be  put  off,  so  you  needn't  think  it.  I 
want  to  hear  them  now.  This  is  a  personal  matter.  It 
touches  me.  I  feel  it ;  how  I  feel  it  you  don't  know.  I 
liked  that  lad ;  and  one  way  and  another  I  looked  to  him 
to  do  you  a  power  of  good.  You  may  have  your  reasons, 
but  I  tell  you  beforehand  that  they  have  got  to  be  good 
'uns  to  satisfy  me." 

At  this  point  Mrs.  Broke  rose  from  the  table  and  left  the 
room.  The  girls,  in  great  distress  as  they  were,  seized 
eagerly  upon  this  act  to  make  good  their  own  escape. 
Broke  also  followed  out  gloomily  upon  their  heels,  so  that 
in  less  than  a  minute  the  aggrieved  Lord  Bosket  was 
conducting  his  soliloquy  to  the  glass  of  whisky  in  front 
of  him. 

"  Well,  I  am  damned  !  "  he  continued  to  repeat,  with 
his  legs  sprawling  under  the  table,  his  chin  on  his  breast, 
and  his  hands  thrust  up  to  the  wristbands  of  his  flannel 
shirt  into  the  pockets  of  his  breeches. 

To  him  in  the  midst  of  his  soliloquy  came  the  youngest 
of  his  nieces  with  a  rather  white  face.  The  butler  and  an 
assistant  were  clearing  up  portions  of  the  breakfast  debris. 

"  Porson,  you  can  leave  us  for  a  few  minutes,"  said 
Delia.  "  I  will  ring  the  bell  when  I  have  spoken  with  his 
lordship.     We  are  not  to  be  interrupted,  please." 

She  waited  for  them  to  go,  and  observing  a  key  in  the 
door,  took  the  precaution  of  turning  it. 

Her  Uncle  Charles  had  sat  with  his  back  to  her  while 
these  manoeuvres  were  going  forward.  She  now  came  and 
took  a  seat  opposite  to  him,  rested  her  elbows  on  the  table, 
and  looked  at  him  in  a  concentrated  manner  with  her  chin 
on  her  hands. 

"  Hullo,  young  'un,"  said  her  uncle  with  a  start.  "  I 
didn't  notice  you  there.  I  thought  3'ou  had  all  gone. 
What  do  you  think  of  this  Billy  business  ?  Don't  you 
think  it  is  very  wrong  and  monstrous  ?  I  suppose  I  ought 
not  to  say  so  to  you  young  tiUies ;  but  I  can't  help  speaking 
as  I  feel,  and  never  could.  Wrong  and  monstrous  I  call  it." 

405 


BROKE    OF    COVENDEN 

Delia  made  no  reply. 

"  They  won't  tell  me  all,  young  'un  ;  but  I  mean  to  know. 
I  have  a  right  to  know.  I  am  the  feller's  uncle,  do  you 
see  ;  he's  the  only  nephew  I've  got ;  and  I  was  very  proud 
of  that  feller.  He  was  the  apple  of  my  eye.  Good- 
looking,  honest,  straightforward,  cheery,  manly  feller.  I 
expect  it's  that  Maud  WayUng.  I  predicted  trouble 
at  the  time.  I've  said  to  your  mother  all  along  it 
would  be  a  mistake  if  they  tried  to  force  his  hand.  The 
right  sort  won't  stand  it.  I  did,  I  know  ;  but  I'm  of  the 
weak  sort,  young  'un,  that's  me.  But  I'll  give  you  my 
word  that  had  I  known  as  much  then  as  I  do  now  no  parson 
livin'  would  ha'  pushed  my  neck  into  the  halter  of  holy 
matrimony." 

There  was  a  keen  pity  in  the  face  of  Delia,  which  was 
generally  there  when  her  Uncle  Charles  "  was  in  one  of  his 
moods."  She  waited  for  him  to  cease  speaking  ;  and  when 
he  had  done  so,  she  said  in  a  perfectly  quiet  and  contained 
voice — 

"  Uncle  Charles,  did  you  see  that  accident  the  other  day  ?  " 

"  Accident  ?     What  accident  ?  "  . 

"  The  accident  to  the  man  who  was  covered  in  blood. 
Do  you  not  remember  he  was  in  your  dogcart  when  you 
drove  past  us  in  the  lane  the  other  day  ?  " 

"  Oh,  that  !     Who  told  you  it  was  an  accident  ?  " 

Lord  Bosket's  face  had  become  suffused  suddenly  \yith 
a  quaint  meaning. 

A  chill  spread  slowly  over  Delia's  veins. 

"  It  was  not  an  accident,  Uncle  Charles  ?  " 

"  I  did  not  say  so,  young  'un." 

"  Please  tell  me,  Uncle  Charles,  how  it  happened." 

Lord  Bosket  grew  war3^  He  was  not  the  type  of  man 
who  is  likely  to  be  overborne  by  his  superfluity  of  wisdom, 
but  that  concentrated  look  upon  his  niece's  face  would 
have  been  startling  to  the  most  obtuse  uncle  in  the  world. 
Besides,  in  a  dim  fashion  he  recalled  to  his  mind  that  old 
Person,  or  somebody,  had  made  a  rather  odd  comment  on 
the  affair  at  the  time  of  its  occurrence.  He  was  not  a 
Solomon,  not  a  Sherlock  Holmes,  but  for  once  he  must 
trv  to  put  two  and  two  together.  He  did  not  like  to  see 
the  Uttle  filly  look  like  that. 

406 


TRIBULATIONS    AT    HANDS    OF    WOMAN 

"  Oh  yes,  young  'un,"  he  said,  attempting  a  lightness 
of  tone  that  had  not  even  the  merit  of  deceiving  his  own 
ears,  "  it  may  have  been  an  accident." 

"  It  was  mot  an  accident,  Uncle  Charles." 

Delia  made  this  announcement  in  a  tone  that  had  a 
rather  uncomfortable  amount  of  decision  in  it.  Somehow 
her  face  was  not  altogether  nice  to  look  at. 

"  Wasn't  it  ?  "  said  her  uncle,  with  an  admirable  caution. 

"  Did  you  see  it,  Uncle  Charles  ?  " 

"  A  bit  of  it.     I  may  have  seen  a  bit  of  it." 

"  Please  tell  me  what  you  saw." 

"  I — I  don't  think  I  ought,  young  'un.  Little  gells 
should  not  be  so  curious,  what  ?  " 

"  It  was  not  an  accident  at  all.  Uncle  Charles." 

"  Wasn't  it  ?  " 

"  You  are  trying  to  deceive  me,  Uncle  Charles." 

"  Why  should  I  try  to  deceive  you,  you  silly  little 
gell  ?  " 

"  Because  it  was  not  an  accident." 

"  Well,  I  never  said  it  was,  did  I  ?  But  whatever  it  was, 
little  Miss  Muffet,  be  ruled  by  me  and  think  no  more  about 
it." 

"  You  must  please  tell  me  what  happened,  Uncle  Charles." 

"  You  must  please  forget  all  about  it,  little  Miss  Poppet. 
I  daresay  it  gave  you  all  a  bit  of  a  shock  to  come  on  a 
bleeding  man  suddenly  like  that ;  but  what's  the  odds,  it 
IS  no  business  of  anybody's.     Your  father " 

"  My  father  ?  "  said  Delia. 

Our  tactful  gentleman  saw  his  mistake  almost  before  he 
had  made  it.  But  his  niece  had  pounced  upon  it  like  a 
hawk  already. 

"  My  father  ?  " 

"Never  mind  your  father;  we  will  drop  the  subject, 
eh  ?  Little  gells  should  not  worry  their  little  heads  about 
things  they  can't  understand,  eh  ?  Now  be  a  good  and 
sensible  little  gell,  and  the  very  next  time  I  come  I  will 
bring  you  a  four-pound  box  of  chocolate  creams  from 
Crossby's,  the  biggest  they  keep  and  the  best  quality." 

"  What  did  my  father  do  ?  " 

"  I  don't  know,"  said  Lord  Bosket,  with  a  lame  and 
somewhat  hurried  recourse  to  his  tumbler. 

407 


BROKE    OF    COVENDEN 

"  You  do  know.  Uncle  Charles,  and  I  insist  that  you  tell 
me. 

On  DeUa's  side  was  a  close-breathing  quietude  that  was 
extraordinary.  The  tones  were  firm  and  even  ;  the  eyes 
were  wide  open  ;  not  a  muscle  faltered.  The  demand,  made 
without  emotion  of  any  kind,  admitted  of  no  compromise. 

"  Damn  it  all !  "  said  Lord  Bosket,  beginning  to  wriggle 
in  his  chair.  He  was  growing  mightily  uncomfortable. 
"  You  ought  not  to  ask  me,  you  know,  and  I  ought  not  to 
tell  you." 

"  I  insist,  Uncle  Charles." 

The  cold  and  stern  face,  still  propped  on  the  stiff  hands, 
was  so  calm  and  hard  that  it  began  to  have  a  kind  of 
baleful  attraction  for  the  uneasy  gentleman,  whose  whisky 
glass  shook  in  his  liands.  It  was  the  rummest  face  he 
had  ever  seen  on  anybody,  man  or  woman  ! 

"  You  mustn't  ask  me,  you  know.  It  is  not  good  for 
little  gells  to  know  everything." 

"  My  father  insulted  him  and  afterwards  struck  him." 

"  I  did  not  say  so,  young  'un,  and  you  can't  say  I  did." 

"  You  shall  not  deny  it,  Uncle  Charles." 

"  Who  said  I  wanted  to  deny  it,  you  silly  little  beggar? 
Why  should  I  ?  What's  the  odds  one  way  or  the  other  ? 
Even  if  your  father  did  cut  up  rough  he  wouldn't  without 
the  best  of  reasons,  would  he  ?  Come  now,  let  it  go  at  that, 
and  don't  trouble  your  silly  little  head  about  it  any  more  ; 
and  be  a  good  little  gell." 

"  You  admit  it,  Uncle  Charles  ?  " 

Lord  Bosket  looked  at  his  niece  with  whimsical  and 
rather  bleared  eyes.  It  had  come  to  something  when  a 
little  niece  not  much  bigger  than  a  pussy  cat,  and  in 
years  not  much  above  a  two-year-old  was  able  to  bully  and 
browbeat  a  man  of  his  age.  But  yet  he  felt  he  had  not  a 
thousand-to-one  chance  against  her.  It  was  the  solidest 
chip  of  determination  ever  formed  out  of  a  human  soul. 
He  felt  that  the  little  devil  had  got  a  will  that  was  worth 
that  of  ten  such  men  as  himself.  He  had  never  seen  a 
woman  with  a  face  like  that  ;  he  was  damned  if  he  would 
not  rather  have  had  to  face  the  missis  at  her  worst  ! 

"  You  admit  it,  Uncle  Charles  ?  "  said  the  unrelenting 
voice. 

408 


TRIBULATIONS  AT  HANDS  OF  WOMAN 

"  Well,  and  suppose  I  do,  what's  the  odds,  you  funny 
little  fool  ?  You  can  take  it  from  me  that  your  father  had 
good  reasons  for  anything  he  did." 

"  He  attacked  a  defenceless  man ;  a  man  weaker  than 
himself  and  smaUer." 

The  tone  continued  to  be  perfectly  quiet  and  unemo- 
tional. 

"  Rubbish,"  said  Lord  Bosket.  "  Don't  think  about 
it  like  that,  you  Uttle  silly.  It  is  not  a  thing  to  make  a 
song  about.  It  is  a  mere  nothing ;  take  it  from  me.  I 
daresay  the  feller  was  insolent." 

"  You  do  not  know  that,  Uncle  Charles  ;  and  one  ought 
not  to  say  what  one  does  not  know  to  be  the  truth." 

"  No,  I  suppose  one  ought  not." 

He  was  completely  taken  aback  for  the  moment  by  the 
extraordinary  manner  of  his  youthful  niece.  Suddenly 
it  made  him  laugh. 

"  But  you  are  gettin'  to  be  a  rum  little  devil,  aren't 
you  ?  Damned  if  I  know  what  to  make  of  you  !  This  is 
not  the  little  Miss  Muffet  I  used  to  know,  quiet  as  a  mouse, 
and  as  simple  as  a  baby.  If  you  go  on  like  this,  miss,  you 
will  be  a  terror,  you  will.  You  haven't  been  taking  lessons 
from  5'our  Aunt  Emma  for  nothing,  you've  not ;  when  you 
run  your  match  with  her  you  won't  run  second,  you  won't. 
You  are  a  little  devil.  Still,  give  me  a  kiss  and  we  won't 
worry  our  heads  any  more  about  it,  will  we  ?  As  I  say, 
what's  the  odds  ?  Your  father  should  be  a  judge  of  his 
own  affairs.  Little  gells  must  not  bother  their  heads  about 
'em.  Now,  Miss  Poppet,  not  another  word ;  and  you  shall 
have  those  chocolates  the  very  next  time  I  come." 

In  this  deUcately  wise  and  paternal  fashion  the  subject 
was  dismissed.  Delia  unlocked  the  door  and  went  out  of 
the  room.  Lord  Bosket  continued  to  confront  his  glass 
for  some  little  time  afterwards.  Somehow  his  thoughts 
would  continue  to  revert  to  the  singular  interview  he  had 
just  had  with  the  youngest  of  all  his  nieces  ;  and  for  the 
time  being  they  overlaid  those  in  regard  to  his  nephew  so 
recently  in  his  mind.  To  find  such  a  particularly  mys- 
terious manner  in  one  of  his  "  little  chestnut  fillies  "  was 
something  quite  new.  Their  hearts  were  whole  and 
unclouded,  as  frank  and  simple  as  the  day.     The  young 

409 


BROKE    OF    COVENDEN 

un  defeated  him  altogether.  He  could  not  remember  to 
have  seen  a  woman  look  like  that  before,  and  he  did  not 
want  to  see  one  look  like  it  again.  It  had  got  home  on  him 
in  a  way  that  had  rather  upset  him,  damn  it  all ! 

This  sense  of  discomfort  continued  to  linger  in  his  mind 
when,  after  breakfast,  he  went  his  way.  He  did  not  com- 
municate any  of  the  doubts  that  invaded  it  to  his  sister  or 
to  Broke,  because,  after  all,  the  interview  might  be  nothing 
more  significant  than  the  outcome  of  a  childish  curiosity  ; 
and  her  manner  might  have  owed  its  strangeness  to  the 
way  in  which  the  sight  of  a  bleeding  man  had  wrought  on 
her  girlish  mind.  Women  were  supposed  to  be  a  bit 
squeamish  in  these  things  ;  and  the  fact  that  her  father 
had  hit  another  man  might  have  outraged  her  sense  of 
delicacy  a  little.  Indeed,  the  only  terms  in  which  he  per- 
mitted himself  to  refer  to  the  subject  at  all  was  when  he 
said  into  Broke's  ear  privately  as  he  was  on  the  point  of 
quitting  the  house — 

"  Have  you  had  a  police-court  summons  yet,  Edmund  ? 
If  I  am  on  the  bench,  my  boy,  I  shall  be  dead  against  you." 

Broke  smiled  a  grim  acknowledgment  of  the  joke. 

At  the  luncheon  table  Mrs.  Broke  made  a  comment  on 
the  absence  of  Delia.  Did  any  one  know  why  she  was  not 
present  ?  Was  she  unwell  ?  Nobody  knew.  She  had 
not  been  seen  since  breakfast.  The  matter  was  pursued 
no  farther  at  that  time.  Most  probably  she  was  sulking 
in  her  bedroom.  They  believed  her  to  be  capable  of  almost 
any  enormity. 

Her  absence  from  that  pious  rite,  afternoon  tea,  was 
not  remarked,  because  she  was  still  forbidden  their  common- 
room.  But  when  dinner  came  and  her  absence  was  again 
remarked;  Mrs.  Broke's  inquiries  grew  more  insistent.  A 
maid  was  despatched  to  her  room,  only  to  return  with  the 
information  that  she  was  not  there. 

As  the  hours  passed  that  evening,  and  the  child  did  not 
return,  a  feeling  of  uneasiness  grew  abroad.  It  became  a 
matter  of  comment  that  she  had  been  rather  strange  in 
her  manner  of  late  ;  instances  of  it  were  recalled  ;  reminis- 
cences came  unliidden  to  their  minds  of  the  singular  attitude 
she  liad  adopted  on  many  questions  that  did  not  admit  of 
two  points  of  view.     But  not  for  a  moment,  however,  did 

410 


TRIBULATIONS    AT    HANDS    OF    WOMAN 

they  condescend  to  follow  their  speculations  to  their 
logical,  their  natural,  their  inevitable  conclusion.  They 
were  face  to  face  with  her  absence.  It  could  only  be 
reconciled  on  one  assumption  ;  and  that  was  precisely 
the  one  their  dignity  would  not  allow  them  to  make. 
The  hideous  idea  was  in  the  minds  of  them  all ;  but  without 
communicating  it  to  one  another  her  five  sisters  were  as 
one  in  the  feeling  that  it  was  too  monstrous,  too  gross, 
too  far-fetched.  To  admit  for  a  moment  that  her  strange 
unhappiness  had  induced  her  to  run  away  from  home,  was 
impossible.     It  would  be  a  treason  against  her  clan. 

When  Mrs.  Broke  had  put  more  strenuous  inquiries 
afoot  among  the  servants,  the  butler  was  able  to  recall  a 
fact  that  was  invested  now  with  a  deep  significance.  He 
mentioned  Miss  Delia's  bidding  himself  and  Capper  leave 
the  room  when  they  were  clearing  away  breakfast,  in  order 
that  shie  might  have  a  private  interview  with  his  lordship, 
who  was  still  seated  at  the  table. 

"  And  if  I  am  not  mistaken,  ma'am,  she  locked  the  door 
when  we  left  the  room." 

"  You  have  no  idea,  Porson,  of  what  she  said  to  his  lord- 
ship ?  " 

Porson  had  not.  Thereon  Mrs.  Broke,  true  to  her 
instinct  for  action  in  times  of  crisis,  despatched  a  mounted 
messenger  to  Hipsley  for  the  purpose  of  summoning  her 
brother  to  Covenden  at  once.  The  man  returned  in  some- 
thing under  an  hour  with  the  news  that  Lord  Bosket  was 
from  home  and  that  nothing  had  been  seen  or  heard  of 
him  all  day.  In  the  meantime  inquiries  at  the  porter's 
lodge  had  elicited  the  fact  that  Delia  had  been  seen  to  pass 
through  the  gates  at  about  a  quarter  past  ten  that  morning. 
No  attention  had  been  paid  to  the  direction  she  had  taken, 
and  she  had  not  been  seen  to  return. 

On  the  stroke  of  midnight,  however,  their  more  immedi- 
ate anxieties  were  allayed  by  the  arrival  of  a  telegram. 
It  ran  :  "  Filly  all  right.  Letter  in  the  morning.  Charles." 
It  bore  the  stamp  of  Charing  Cross. 


411 


CHAPTER  XXXIV 

Providential  Behaviour  of  old  Pearce 

LORD  BOSKET'S  wanderings  in  the  quest  of  an  allevia- 
tion to  his  lot  took  him  in  the  course  of  that  afternoon 
to  a  cricket  match  some  dozen  miles  away.  His  taste 
had  the  all-embracing  catholicity  of  the  true  sportsman. 
Wherever  two  sides  contended,  or  one  living  thing  was 
pitted  against  another,  the  contest  ensuing  was  sure  of 
his  patronage.  Two  spiders  on  a  hot  plate,  or  a  pair  of 
mongrels  in  an  entry,  provided  one  was  matched  against  the 
other,  were  enough  to  allure  his  imagination,  and  to  excite 
his  lust  for  finding  the  winner.  Therefore  three  o'clock 
this  summer  afternoon  found  him  mingling  with  the 
throng  in  Bushmills  Park  that  was  witnessing  the  first 
innings  of  the  Free  Foresters  in  their  game  with  I  Zingari. 

His  arrival  on  the  grovmd  was  a  signal  for  mild  com- 
motion. Acquaintances  of  his  own  sex  slapped  him  on  the 
back,  punched  him  in  the  ribs,  waved  their  hands  to  him, 
and  acclaimed  him  from  every  possible  quarter.  Long- 
field-on,  in  his  after-luncheon  nap  against  the  corner  of  the 
bowling  screen,  awoke  sufficiently  to  murmur,  "  Hullo, 
Bos  ! ' '  Acquaintances  of  the  opposite  sex  sat  up  and  purred, 
lifted  their  eyes  to  him,  confided  to  him  their  gloved  paws, 
made  very  pretty  moues  indeed,  and  by  delicately  percep- 
tible fluctuations  of  their  drapery  gave  graceful  indications 
that  there  was  room  for  dear  Lord  Bosket  to  come  and  sit 
beside  them.  Everybody  feted  him.  He  was  buttonholed 
b\'  this  person  and  that.  They  were  three  deep  around 
him  in  the  luncheon  tent  to  take  turns  to  engage  in  con- 
versation with  him,  whither  he  had  been  escorted  by  another 
body  of  his  friends  to  have  a  drink. 

There  is  no  man  who  enjoys  the  popularity  of  him 
412 


BEHAVIOUR    OF    OLD    PEARCE 

with  a  reputation  for  good  nature.  It  lands  him  high  and 
dry  on  a  pinnacle  it  is  given  to  few  to  attain.  It  makes  its 
appeal  to  all  sorts  and  conditions  of  men.  For  does  not 
such  a  guarantee  of  single-mindedness  grow  rarer  and  rarer 
under  the  stress  of  our  progress  ?  The  wear-and-tear 
becomes  too  great.  The  skyey  influences  are  averse.  Our 
friend's  querulous  melancholy  was  like  an  oasis  in  the 
desert  of  a  self-satisfied  austerity.  Old  Bos  was  not  so 
confoundedly  superior.  A  reputation  of  this  kind  stood 
him  in  far  better  stead  than  the  most  brilliant  intellectual 
gifts  or  a  life  of  virgin  purity.  Where  the  amiable  weak- 
nesses of  others  could  not  have  been  condoned,  no  cause  of 
offence  was  to  be  discerned  in  such  an  idol  of  the  populace. 

In  the  course  of  an  hour  our  friend  had  disengaged  him- 
self from  several  groups  of  these  clamorous  persons, 
ultimately  to  fall  into  the  clutches  of  a  celebrated  sporting 
baronet  who  hved  in  the  neighbourhood.  Our  old  friend, 
Sir  Horatio,  and  other  experts  in  this  recondite  lore,  inform 
us  that  there  are  always  two  peculiarities  by  which  a 
baronet  may  be  identified.  He  is  invariably  "celebrated  " 
and  as  invariably  "  sporting."  This  one  was  of  the 
unimpeachable  variety,  the  true  genus  that  keeps  more 
"  gees  "  in  its  stable  than  it  does  in  its  vocabulary.  He 
was  of  the  most  familiar  type  of  celebrated  sporting  baronet 
that  tradition  has  made  dear  to  us,  which  affects  a  high- 
crowned  square  felt  hat,  snuff-coloured  clothes,  a  horse- 
shoe pin,  and  brown  gaiters.  He  had  the  ruddy  bluff  look 
of  the  farmer,  with  brusquerie  and  absence  of  manners  to 
match. 

"  How  are  you,  Bos  ?  "  he  said  heartily.  "  Fine  day 
for  the  race." 

"  Devilish,"  said  Lord  Bosket.  "  Come  and  have  a 
drink." 

"  Don't  mind.  I've  got  something  to  tell  you,  only  I 
can't  think  what." 

"  Fancy  anything  for  the  July  meetin'  ?  " 

"  The  Dwarf ;  and  Gub  Gub  for  a  place.  Now,  what  is 
it  I  want  to  tell  you  ?     Something — something  funny." 

"  Seen  the  weights  for  Newmarket  ?  " 

"  Not  I.  Now  I've  got  it.  A  sing'lar  thing  I  saw  tliis 
mornin'.     One  of  those  nieces  of  yours." 

413 


BROKE    OF    COVENDEN 

"  What,  what,  Pearce,"  said  Lord  Bosket  with  a  sudden 
eagerness.  Something  had  given  a  great  leap  under  his 
waistcoat. 

"  I  think  it  must  have  been  the  youngest  of  'em,  if  I 
remember  'em  right." 

"  Well,  well,  Pearce,"  said  Lord  Bosket  impatiently ; 
the  athletic  performance  under  his  waistcoat  had  been 
repeated. 

"  I  met  her  walkin'  along  the  high  road  covered  up  to 
the  neck  in  dust." 

"  When — this  mornin'  ?     Nothing  very  funny  in  that." 

"  You  hold  on  a  bit,  old  son.  I'm  comin'  to  the  funny 
part.  She  stopped  me  and  said,  '  If  you  please,  is  this 
the  road  to  London  ?  '  I  told  her  if  she  walked  another 
forty  miles  or  so  along  it  she  would  find  herself  about 
there.  If  she  had  started  from  her  place  she  must  have 
walked  more  than  ten  already,  and  a  broilin'  hot  day.  I 
couldn't  understand  it  at  all.  It  seemed  a  sing'lar 
thing  for  one  of  your  little  chestnuts  to  ask  a  question 
like  that,  and  to  ask  it  as  though  she  meant  to  do  every 
yard  of  the  distance  on  her  flat  feet.  I  wanted  to  tell  you, 
Bos  ;   in  my  opinion,  it's  a  thing  you  ought  to  know." 

"  It  couldn't  ha'  been  one  o'  my  fillies." 

Conviction  was  grievously  lacking  in  the  tone  of  Delia's 
uncle. 

"  Don't  you  bother  your  head  about  that,  my  boy. 
Do  you  think  I  don't  know  one  of  that  kennel  when  I  see 
one  ?  She'd  got  a  nose  on  her  like  a  knocker  on  a  door. 
One  of  the  old  pattern,  or  my  eyesight's  failin' ;  Edmund 
himself  doesn't  carry  a  better." 

"  Go  on,  Pearce,  nose  isn't  everything." 

"  It  is  with  that  kennel,  my  boy.  I'll  own,  when  I  first 
saw  her  I  thought  she  was  a  dam  sight  too  handsome  to 
be  one  of  j-our  litter.  She'd  got  two  eyes  to  her  like  a  pair 
of  stars,  and  that  blue  that  the  sky  was  a  fool  to  'em.  I 
wondered  how  the  dooce  that  sort  came  into  your  kennel, 
Bos.  Against  the  regulations,  ain't  it  ?  But  I  alwaye 
sav  a  woman  is  the  same  as  a  good  bitch.  The  breed 
makes  all  the  difference.  She  may  strike  you  as  ugly  at 
first,  but  just  wait  till  you've  gone  over  her  points,  and 
then    you    find  out    she's  about  as  handsome  as   paint. 

4M 


BEHAVIOUR   OF   OLD    PEARCE 

That  one  was  a  nailer,  my  boy,  and  no  error.  And  I  don't 
mind  telling  you,  Bos,  that  when  I  saw  that  thoroughbred 
tit  of  yours  marching  down  the  road  with  her  little  chin 
in  the  air,  and  as  proud  and  dainty  on  her  feet  as  a  three- 
year-old,  I  thought  her  a  stepper." 

Lord  Bosket  gave  vent  to  his  feelings  in  a  whistle  very 
deep  and  long. 

"  Well,  I  am  damned  !  Come  and  have  a  drink,  Pearce. 
This  is  a  nice  how-d'ye-do  !  " 

Another  libation  in  the  tent  brought  no  comfort  to 
Delia's  uncle.  Her  behaviour  at  the  breakfast  table  had 
been  bitten  too  sharply  in  his  mind.  He  began  to  blame 
himself  bitterly,  as  his  habit  was  when  things  went  amiss, 
on  the  score  of  his  own  folly.  He  ought  to  have  known 
she  was  up  to  something.  He  ought  to  have  known  that 
no  little  filly  had  a  right  to  look  as  she  had  looked  that 
morning.  She  might  well  have  a  rum  manner,  if  she  had 
made  up  her  mind  to  run  away  from  home.  But  he 
could  not  believe  one  of  his  nieces  to  be  capable  of  such 
an  act.  They  were  the  last  people  in  the  world  to  do 
such  a  thing.  What  would  Edmund  say  ?  Whatever  had 
possessed  her  ? 

In  the  course  of  the  next  quarter  of  an  hour  his  mind, 
heavily  shackled  in  whisky  as  it  was,  had  brought  him 
to  the  conclusion  that  there  was  only  one  thing  to  do. 
He  must  go  after  her  at  once.  The  road  to  London  ran 
by  the  gates  of  Bushmills  Park,  and  London  was  clearly 
her  destination.  As  he  climbed  into  his  trap  and  took 
the  reins  from  his  man,  and  trotted  away  on  his  absurd 
errand,  the  incredible  folly  of  the  Httle  fool  recurred  to 
him.  To  walk  forty  miles  to  London  in  the  blazing  heat 
of  a  midsummer  day  was  the  maddest  thing  he  had  ever 
heard.  If  she  wanted  to  get  there  why  did  she  not  have 
the  ordinary  common-sense  to  go  by  train  ?  The  little  fool 
must  be  mad ! 

He  would  like  to  ask  also  what  did  she  propose  to  do 
when  she  got  there  ?  She  would  not  be  likely  to  go  to  her 
friends,  mad  as  she  was,  for  that  would  only  be  to  be 
packed  straight  back  home  again.  But  that  was  the  only 
project  she  could  have  in  her  mind.  It  was  almost  certain 
that  a  mere  whim  had  possessed  her  ;  that  the  heat  of  her 

415 


BROKE    OF    COVExNDEN 

folly  would  soon  cool ;  and  that  she  would  hail  a  restora- 
tion to  the  fold.  But  she  would  catch  it  pretty  hot  when 
she  did  go  home,  if  he  knew  anything  of  her  father  !  And 
there  was  no  doubt  whatever  in  his  mind  that  women  were 
rum  beggars  when  they  liked.  She  had  wormed  a  secret 
out  of  him  that  she  had  no  right  to  hear ;  and  to  express 
her  opinion  of  it,  in  an  absurdly  literal  sense ,  she  calmly 
ran  away  from  home.  He  could  see  now  more  clearly 
than  ever  that  he  ought  not  to  have  told  her.  He  felt 
at  the  time  he  was  making  a  great  mistake. 

As  he  passed  the  milestones  on  the  dusty  road,  the  face 
and  manner  of  his  niece  recurred  to  him  vividly  and 
perpetually.  Of  course  he  ought  to  have  known,  besotted 
fool  that  he  was,  that  mischief  was  brewing.  The  little 
tit  had  no  right  to  that  sort  of  look.  At  the  breakfast 
table  it  had  disconcerted  him ;  and  it  came  out  at  him  now 
through  the  sunlight,  through  the  dust-coated  hedges  and  the 
abundant  foliage  in  a  fashion  that  made  him  as  thoroughly 
uncomfortable  as  it  did  when  he  first  saw  it  that  morning. 

As  the  raking  stride  of  the  horse  took  him  up  hill  and 
down  dale,  and  devoured  the  endless  undulating  ribbon 
of  white  road,  doubt  invaded  him.  He  might,  after  all,  be 
on  a  wild-goose  chase.  When  you  looked  at  it  reasonably 
the  thing  seemed  impossible.  What  a  great  "  score  "  off 
him  it  would  be  for  old  Pearce,  if  it  was  a  mere  first-of- 
April  fake.  How  everybody  would  chuckle  and  tell  it 
against  him !  But  still,  old  Pearce  was  not  that  sort  of 
feller.  He  had  been  very  circumstantial  about  it  too,  and 
he  was  the  last  man  in  the  world  to  put  a  child's  trick  upon 
you.  All  the  same,  by  the  time  his  good  horse's  stride  had 
devoured  a  dozen  miles  or  so  of  the  dusty  road,  the 
grotesqueness  of  his  mission  assumed  a  higher  significance, 
and  its  sanity  a  less.  With  deeper  conviction  he  began 
to  affirm  that  the  whole  business  was  too  preposterous. 

Nevertheless  he  continued  to  go  on.  The  phantom  of  a 
so-calm  and  frigid  little  face  lured  him  forward  mile  by 
mile,  where  cold  reason  demanded  that  he  should  right- 
about-face and  return.  But  no,  he  would  see  it  through. 
They  might  have  the  laugh  at  him  afterwards,  they  would 
have  very  likely,  but  the  sportsman  in  him  was  enough  of 
itself  to  take  him  all  the  way.     He  pulled  up  at  wayside 

4t6 


BEHAVIOUR    OF    OLD    PEARCE 

inns  on  two  occasions,  ostensibly  to  obtain  information  of  a 
young  gell  asking  the  road  to  London,  but  also  to  obtain 
a  little  light  refreshment  in  a  liquid  form.  Of  the  one 
they  were  able  to  give  cheerfully,  but  of  the  other  they 
could  not  an  they  would. 

By  the  time  the  dogcart  had  covered  twenty  miles  the 
sun  had  taken  a  very  decided  dip.  It  was  a  perfect  evening 
of  early  summer.  Mellow  lights  suffused  the  clover  ;  not 
a  leaf  stirred  by  the  roadside,  so  absolutely  still  was  the 
air  ;  while  the  trees  stood  motionless  to  trail  their  long 
shadows  in  the  dust.  Now  and  then  a  bird  hovered  over 
hedges,  an  occasional  hare  ran  along  the  road,  and  rabbits 
darted  in  all  directions,  hoisting  their  little  white  scuts. 
It  began  to  grow  dusk.  The  dubious  tints  of  the  twilight 
were  refl^^ted  powerfully  in  Lord  Bosket.  A  milestone  told 
him  that  twelve  miles  farther  on  he  would  be  in  London. 
The  odds  were  enormous  against  his  finding  his  quarry; 
Still  he  was  going  all  the  way.  He  would  never  hear  the 
last  of  the  story  they  would  tell  against  him — that  he  drove 
into  town  on  a  summer's  evening  from  Bushmills  Park, 
because  old  Pearce  had  told  him  a  cock-and-bull  tale  about 
one  of  his  nieces  asking  her  way  to  London.  But  whether 
he  found  the  little  gell  or  not  he  was  going  all  the  way  ; 
let  'em  say  what  they  liked  when  they  heard  about  it. 

To  that  end  he  eased  the  paces  of  his  horse.  He  looked 
at  his  watch  ;  it  wanted  five-and-twenty  minutes  to  nine 
o'clock.  He  had  now  come  twenty-five  miles  from  Bush- 
mills Park  as  nearly  as  he  could  calculate  ;  about  thirty- 
five  from  Hipsley ;  and  thirty-seven  from  Covenden.  It 
was  hardly  likely  that  she  had  walked  so  far  through  all 
this  infernal  dust,  in  such  a  broiling  day  of  midsummer. 
The  odds  were  a  thousand  to  five  that  he  had  missed  her, 
or  that  she  had  never  come. 

His  optimism  was  not  increased  by  the  fact  that  im- 
mistakable  evidences  were  beginning  to  assert  themselves 
in  him.  It  was  already  an  hour  past  the  time  at  which 
he  preferred  to  dine  ;  and  it  would  be  a  good  nine  miles 
yet  before  he  touched  the  suburbs  of  London.  Hereabouts 
he  came  to  a  hill ;  and  in  walking  his  horse  up  it  encountered 
a  farmer  in  a  covered  cart  coming  down. 

"  I  say,"  he  called  out,   "  have  you  met  a  little  gell 

417  DD 


BROKE    OF    COVENDEN 

walkin'  towards  London  ?  Don't  happen  to  have  seen 
one,  do  you  ?  " 

"  Aye,"  said  the  farmer,  "  so  I  have.  I  passed  one 
about  a  quarter  of  a  mile  back,  covered  in  dust  about  as 
white  as  a  miller.  Looks  as  though  she's  been  tramping 
it  all  day.  And  she's  that  lame  she  can  hardly  put  one 
foot  afore  t'other.  Better  give  her  a  lift,  guv'nor,  if  you 
are  going  her  way.     Her  goose  is  about  cooked,  I  reckon." 

"  Well,  I  am  damned,"  said  Lord  Bosket,  pressing  on. 

The  sun  was  much  lower  now.  The  patch  of  crimson- 
yellow  with  which  it  had  painted  the  sky  behind  him  had 
deepened  to  tints  more  complex  and  mysterious.  The 
moon  had  assumed  a  faint  outline,  and  the  evening  was 
growing  chill.  Confronted  by  a  hill  stiffer  than  usual,  he 
took  his  tired  horse  carefully  to  the  top.  On  tke  crest  a 
heap  of  flints  for  road -mending  purposes  had  Deen  shot 
beside  a  hedge,  and  seated  on  them  was  the  little  figure  of 
a  woman.  From  head  to  foot  was  she  clothed  in  a  mantle 
of  dust,  about  as  white  as  a  miller,  as  the  farmer  had  said. 
She  was  breathing  hard  ;  there  was  not  a  speck  of  colour  in 
her  face  ;  she  had  taken  off  her  straw  hat,  but  her  hair, 
a  lightish  chestnut  colour,  had  not  lost  its  orderliness  of 
arrangement  and  serenity  of  form.  The  distress  of  her 
condition  was  cruelly  apparent,  and  the  limp  lines  into 
which  her  small  figure  fell  caused  Lord  Bosket  to  give  a 
grunt  of  dismay. 

Delia  did  not  see  her  uncle  at  first.  Her  eyes  were 
turned  towards  the  long  and  deep  valley  into  which  this 
hill  ran  down.  They  were  fixed  with  a  concentrated 
intensity  on  the  stretch  of  white  road,  ankle  deep  in  dust 
on  which  the  shadows  were  beginning  to  creep  darker  and 
darker  :  the  road  to  London.  Her  hands  were  clasped 
round  her  knees.  Hearing  the  sound  of  wheels  hard  by, 
she  turned  her  head  so  sliglitly  that  it  seemed  to  imply  that 
the  power  was  not  in  her  to  turn  it  farther  ;  and  asked 
without  looking  at  vehicle  or  driver — 

"  How  far  to  London,  please  ?  " 

"  You  damned  young  fool  !  "  was  the  answer  she 
received. 

Already  it  had  struck  Lord  Bosket  with  a  sensation  of 
horror  that  the  tone  in  which  she  asked  the  question  was 

418 


BEHAVIOUR    OF   OLD    PEARCE 

that  of  their  interview  at  the  breakfast  table.  She  did 
not  appear  to  recognize  the  voice  of  her  uncle,  but  at  his 
words  she  turned  her  head  towards  him  with  a  bewildered 
expression.  The  grey  hue  of  her  face  had  something  of 
the  intolerable  weariness  of  death. 

Lord  Bosket  was  already  out  of  his  dogcart. 

"  You  damned  young  fool !  "  he  said  again  roughly, 

Delia  did  not  reply.  Her  hps  were  pressed  very  tight, 
so  tight  that  she  did  not  seem  to  possess  the  energy  to  force 
them  apart. 

Her  uncle,  meeting  with  no  reply,  stood  in  front  of  her  in 
his  time-honoured  attitude,  with  his  hands  in  the  pockets 
of  his  breeches.  He  looked  her  over  keenly.  She  was 
dead  beat. 

"  Poor  Uttle  gell,"  he  grunted. 

He  then  began  to  emit  his  peculiar  long-drawn  whistle. 
The  virtue  of  it  at  that  moment  was  not  very  clear,  unless 
it  was  a  natural  tonic  to  his  wits.  At  least  it  served  to 
summon  his  practical  nature  to  his  aid,  for  his  next  act 
was  to  take  from  an  inside  pocket  of  his  covert  coat  a 
flask  containing  his  favourite  stimulant. 

"  Down  with  it,"  he  said  gruffly, 

Delia  seized  the  cup  with  something  akin  to  ferocity, 
and  without  giving  the  slightest  heed  to  the  contents, 
drank  eagerly. 

"  Poor  little  gell,"  said  Lord  Bosket,  speaking  in  the 
manner  of  one  who  suffers  from  a  sore  throat. 

There  was  that  In  her  act  which  suddenly  bleared  his 
eyes  more  effectually  than  ever.  He  wiped  out  the  im- 
pedimenta sedulously  with  his  handlverchief,  and  blew  his 
nose  with  tremendous  vehemence, 

"  I  am  old  enough  to  know  better,"  he  muttered  to  his 
man  as  he  turned  away  his  face  from  the  cause  of  all  this 
inconvenience.  Presently,  having  resumed  a  sufficient 
command  of  his  demeanour  to  venture  to  address  his 
young  niece,  who  still  sat  motionless  on  the  heap  of  stones, 
he  did  so  in  a  voice  of  hoarse  expostulation — 

"  You  have  walked  forty  miles  as  near  as  damn  it, 
in  all  that  broiling  sun,  and  if  you  have  not  about  done  for 
yourself,  it's  God's  mercy,  that's  all  I've  got  to  say  about  it, 
I  will  drive  you  into  London,  and  we  shall  have  to  go  home 

419 


BROKE    OF    COVENDEN 

by  train  in  the  morning.  You  are  in  no  state  to  go  back 
to-night.  We  must  have  you  between  the  blankets  as 
soon  as  we  can.  It  is  the  maddest  business  I  ever  heard  of 
in  my  life.  However,  this  is  not  the  tinie  for  talk.  Into 
the  trap  with  you." 

He  made  to  take  the  small  figure  in  his  arms,  for  the 
purpose  of  hoisting  it  into  the  vehicle,  as  it  showed  no 
signs  of  moving  of  its  own  accord. 

"  Please,  Uncle  Charles,  you  are  not  to  touch  me." 

Her  tone  and  manner  were  as  extraordinarily  uncom- 
promising as  they  were  at  nine  o'clock  that  morning. 

"  What,  what  ?  "  said  her  uncle,  taken  aback. 

Delia  did  not  move  an  inch.  Lord  Bosket  approached 
indecisively. 

"  Please,  do  not  touch  me.  Uncle  Charles." 

"  Not  touch  you,  young  fool,"  he  said  querulously  and 
hoarsely.  "  I  ought  to  be  takin'  the  skin  off  your  back, 
miss,  if  I  was  doin'  the  right  thing  by  you.  Not  touch  you, 
indeed  !  " 

As  her  uncle  stretched  out  his  hand  to  seize  her,  in  the 
tentative  manner  that  he  might  seize  a  kitten,  she  made 
a  little  motion  by  which  she  gathered  her  dust-laden  skirts 
away  from  him. 

"  You  must  leave  me.  Uncle  Charles.  I  must  not,  I  can- 
not go  with  you." 

Her  tone  was  absolutely  final.  Lord  Bosket  was  fully 
conscious  already  of  his  own  impotence  before  it. 

"  Nonsense  ;  tut,  tut  !  "  he  said  persuasively.  "  Never 
heard  such  a  thing  in  my  life.  Where  do  you  think  you 
are  goin'  to,  and  what  do  you  think  is  goin'  to  become  of 
you  ?     You  can't  stop  here  all  night,  that's  a  moral." 

"  You  will  take  me  to  Covenden." 

"  Of  course,  to-morrow." 

"  I  can  never  go  to  Covenden  again." 

Once  more  Lord  Bosket  recorded  his  stupefaction  with 
a  whistle.  He  did  not  know  how  to  handle  such  an  un- 
conipromising  determination.  He  was  not  fitted  to  do 
so  by  nature.  Here,  in  this  overdriven,  overborne  bit 
of  a  tiling,  was  a  prol:)lem  that  he  had  neither  the  wit  to 
understand  nor  the  strength  to  grapple  with. 

"  You've  damn  well  got  to,"  he  said. 
420 


BEHAVIOUR    OF    OLD    PEARCE 

Delia,  however,  stuck  quietly  to  the  other  view. 

"  Come,  don't  be  a  little  silly.  Let  me  put  you  into 
the  trap." 

"  I  will  not  be  put  into  the  trap,  Uncle  Charles." 

"Rot.  Rubbish.  You  don't  know  what  you  are 
sayin'.  Come,  now,  be  a  sensible  little  gell,  and  when  you 
get  home  I  will  give  you  a  nice  new  hoss  with  four  white 
stockings." 

Our   friend  held  out  his    hand    with    a    gesture    half 
of  testiness,  half  of  cajolery.     Delia  closed  her  eyes  and ' 
hugged  her  knees   tighter. 

"  Come  on,  there's  a  good  Uttle  gell." 

He  approached  her  in  the  wary  manner  of  a  cat 
catching  a  bird,  and  suddenly  put  his  arms  round  her.  He 
found  her  to  be  very  cold  and  trembling  violently. 

"  I  forbid  you  to  touch  me,  Uncle  Charles." 

She  began  to  struggle  fitfully  in  her  uncle's  irresolute 
grasp.     Her  heart  was  beating  wildly  through  her  dress. 

"  I  will  jump  out  of  the  trap,"  she  said. 

With  all  this  decision  of  language  and  behaviour  in  one 
ordinarily  so  docile,  there  was  a  complete  absence  of 
emotion  in  the  voice  and  gesture  by  which  it  was  embodied. 
They  were  both  so  hard  that  Lord  Bosket  was  baffled  by 
it,  and  perhaps  a  little  frightened  also.  He  had  never  seen 
anything  so  uncanny.  He  did  not  know  whether  the 
poor  httle  devil  had  become  slightly  insane,  a  bit  touched 
by  the  sun,  or  what,  but  this  was  certainly  not  the  timid 
tender  petted  little  filly  he  had  always  known.  There  was  a 
dreary  piteousness  underlying  it  all  too,  that  at  times 
made  him  take  in  his  breath  rather  sharply.  He  would 
be  perfectly  justified  in  resorting  to  compulsion  in  a  case 
of  this  sort ;  but  even  as  he  gathered  himself  to  employ  it, 
a  sudden  nausea  inflicted  him.  No,  he  was  damned  if  he 
could  be  rough  with  her.  He  had  never  laid  his  finger  on 
a  woman  yet,  and  even  if  her  parents  blamed  him  bitterly 
afterwards,  it  was  asking  too  much  of  a  man  at  his  time  of 
life  to  begin  that  sort  of  thing  now. 

"  You  must  tell  me  all  about  it  then,"  he  said,  in  tones 
which,  in  spite  of  himself,  were  conciliatory.  Then  realising, 
somewhat  to  his  dismay,  that  they  were  of  that  nature 
when  they  were  certainly  not  intended  to  be  so,  he  gave 

421 


BROKE    OF    COVENDEN 

himself  up  to  luxury.  He  drew  her  cold  face  to  his  coat, 
and  gave  it  a  hug.  "  Tell  your  damned  old  fool  of  an 
uncle  all  about  it,  you  poor  Uttle  soul.  No  harm  shall  come 
to  you,  I'll  give  you  my  word." 

"  Promise,  Uncle  Charles,  you  will  not  take  me  to 
Covenden."  She  permitted  her  wan  cheek  to  he  an  instant 
against  him  and  closed  her  eyes. 

"  I  can't  do  that,  you  know.  I  would  if  I  could,  but  I 
mustn't,  you  know.  I'm  bound  to  see  you  home  all 
right." 

Delia,  half  fainting  in  his  arms  from  hunger,  thirst  and 
weariness,  remnined  perfectly  inexorable  on  that  point. 
More  and  more  fully  did  her  uncle  realise  that  his  clay 
was  not  stem  enough,  not  anything  like  stern  enough,  to 
cope  with  such  a  stony  resolution.  He  saw  clearly  that 
unless  he  gave  his  promise  no  progress  was  possible. 
Things  would  remain  at  a  deadlock,  and  already  it  was 
nearly  pitch  dark.  "  She  ought  to  have  a  damned  good 
hidin',  but  I'm  hanged  if  I  can  give  it  her,"  he  recorded 
for  his  own  private  information  and  that  of  his  man,  as 
he  hugged  her  tighter  to  his  coat. 

"  Come,  come,  miss,  no  damn  nonsense." 

Gently  he  tried  to  lift  her.  At  once  she  began  to  struggle 
convulsively. 

"  Promise,  Uncle  Charles." 

"  I  can't,  you  know.      I  mustn't,  you  know." 

"  Leave  me  then,  Uncle  Charles.     I  must  go  on  alone." 

With  a  sudden  movement  of  an  amazing  quickness  she 
had  slipped  his  grasp. 

Lord  Bosket  knew  already  that  he  was  defeated.  Good 
nature  is  an  asset  from  the  social  point  of  view,  but  it 
would  appear  that  it  has  its  drawbacks  in  the  occasional 
stress  of  the  unartificial  affairs  of  life. 

"  Very  well,  then,"  he  said  gruffly,  "  I  give  in ;  I  promise ; 
I  chuck  up  the  sponge." 

"  You  promise  also  not  to  take  me  to  Grosvenor  Street, 
Uncle  Charles  ?  " 

"  1  may  be  a  fool,  but  I  am  not  a  damned  fool,  I  hope," 
said  Lord  Bosket  with  some  alacrity.  In  his  opinion,  the 
undesirability  of  his  own  house  as  a  place  of  refuge  did 
not  require  to  be  stated. 

422 


BEHAVIOUR    OF   OLD    PEARCE 

**  Where  do  you  mean  to  take  me.  Uncle  Charles  ?  " 

"  God  knows  !  " 

On  the  strength  of  this  assurance  Delia  climbed  up  into 
the  dogcart.  It  caused  her  uncle  to  shed  more  curses 
to  observe,  as  she  did  so,  that  she  was  dead  lame ;  also  that 
twice  she  nearly  missed  her  footing  on  the  awkward  step 
and  reeled  against  the  cushion  when  she  entered  the 
vehicle  at  last.  It  was  still  a  soft-breathing  summer 
evening,  but  faintly  chill,  yet  her  uncle  was  surprised  to 
find  how  cold  she  was  as  she  nestled  in  the  small  space 
between  him  and  the  man.  He  took  off  his  covert  coat, 
wrapped  her  in  it,  placed  one  arm  tenderly  round  her, 
and  drew  her  cold  cheeks  against  his  jacket. 

"  If  you  must  go  to  London  why  did  you  walk,  you  little 
fool  ?  " 

That  absurd  but  palpable  fact  stuck  in  his  practical 
throat. 

"  I  had  no  money,"  said  Delia  simply. 

"  As  rotten  a  reason  as  ever  I  heard.  Why  didn't  you 
borrow  a  bit  ?  " 

It  seemed  to  Lord  Bosket  that  such  a  reason  was  indeed 
very  odd  and  inadequate.  But  there  could  be  no  doubt 
that,  as  far  as  it  went,  it  was  a  sufficient  one.  Suddenly  a 
new  thought  started  up  in  him,  and  harrowed  his  well- 
fed  feelings. 

"  You  are  not  goin'  to  tell  me  that  you  have  been  walkin' 
in  the  hot  sun  since  ten  o'clock  this  morning  without  a 
crumb  to  peck  or  a  drop  to  drink  ?  " 

"  Yes,"  said  Delia. 

"  Well,  that's  won  it !  " 

Lord  Bosket  was  heard  to  swear  with  hoarse  vehemence. 
"  No  money  ;  nothing  to  eat !  "  he  repeated  several  times 
under  his  breath,  apparently  to  impress  the  incredible  fact 
on  his  mind. 

"  Shove  along,  Thompson,"  he  said  to  the  man  im- 
patiently. 

"  Where,  your  lordship  ?  " 

"  Better  ask  me  another.  I  give  it  up.  I  can't  take 
her  to  the  club,  and  I  can't  take  her  to  Grosvenor 
Street.  I  suppose  we  had  better  point  for  one  of  those 
barracks    in    Northumberland    Avenue.     Shove    on,    my 

423  ■ 


BROKE    OF    COVENDEN 

boy ;  poor  old  Bendy  looks  like  havin'  his  bell57{iil  this 
time,  if  he  never  had  it  full  before." 

"  And  where  were  you  goin'  to  even  if  you  got  as  far  as 
London  ?  if  I  might  make  so  bold  as  to  inquire,"  our 
bewildered  friend  demanded  of  his  niece. 

Delia  did  not  reply. 

"  Come  on,  out  with  it.  You've  got  my  word,  haven't 
you  ?  I  shall  not  give  you  away,  you  poor  little  devil." 

Probably  as  a  token  of  her  confidence  in  him,  Delia 
answered:  "  I  was  going  to  No.  403, Charing  Cross  Road." 

"  And  who  the  devil  lives  at  403,  Charing  Cross  Road  r* " 

"  It  is  the  office  of  the  International  Review." 

"  Oh,  indeed  !  very  interesting  to  be  sure.  But  I  don't 
quite  see  what  that  was  goin'  to  do  for  you." 

"  Mr.  Porter  is  on  the  staff  of  the  International  Review." 

"  Oh,  is  he  !  Very  nice  for  the  International  Review. 
But  who  the  deuce  is  Mr.  Porter  ?  " 

Now  that  Delia  was  committed  to  her  statement  she 
did  not  flinch  from  making  it. 

"  Mr.  Porter  loves  me,  Uncle  Charles." 

"Oh,  does  he!"  said  her  Uncle  Charles.  "Very  good 
of  Mr.  Porter,  I'm  sure.  But  I  don't  quite  follow.  What 
the  devil  has  all  this  got  to  do  with  yom:  runnin'  away 
from  home  ?  " 

"  I  love  him,"  said  Delia  with  her  singular  precision  of 
voice  and  phrase. 

"  Oh,  do  you  !     Nice  for  Mr.  Porter." 

Lord  Bosket  could  not  repress  a  rather  weary  guffaw, 
which  he  proceeded  to  impart  to  the  air  of  the  night. 

"  These  are  all  very  excellent  reasons,  miss,  I  don't 
doubt ;  and  I  daresay  it  is  because  I  am  such  a  fuddle- 
headed  sort  of  a  feller  that  I  don't  see  what  they  have  got 
to  do  with  it  at  all.  You  walk  forty  miles  on  the  hottest 
day  of  the  year,  with  not  a  crumb  to  eat  or  a  drop  to 
drink,  and  not  a  sou  in  your  pocket,  in  order  that  if  you 
are  lucky  you  will  be  able  to  drop  down  dead  on  the  door- 
step of  a  locked-up  newspaper  office  in  the  Charing  Cross 
Road  about  midnight.  I  daresay  now  and  again  I  do 
drink  a  glass  or  two  more  than  I  ought,  but  I  am  damned 
if  I  can  quite  see " 

Lord  Bosket  finished  his  somewhat  impassioned  summing 
424 


BEHAVIOUR   OF   OLD    PEARCE 

up  oi  the  case  as  it  presented  itself  to  his  judicial  mind, 
with  a  deep  but  wholly  irrelevant  malediction.  Hour  by 
hour  his  liberties  with  our  chaste  common  tongue  had 
become  more  egregious  and  unpardonable.  We  feel  that 
this  chapter  has  already  alienated  every  right-minded 
human  being  who  has  had  the  temerity  to  follow  his  fortunes 
as  far ;  and  are  assured  that  the  dear  evangelical  old 
maiden  lady,  whose  unhappy  task  it  has  been  to  review 
our  pages  for  the  Spectator  has  renounced  them  long  ago, 
sent  out  her  maid  to  call  in  the  cat,  and  retired  to  bed 
with  a  sick  headache  ;  therefore  we  hesitate  to  pile  Pelion 
on  Ossa  by  revealing  the  immediate  terms  in  which  our 
profligate  friend  saw  fit  to  clothe  his  thoughts  !  For  a 
ray  of  light  had  burst  upon  him  at  last.  There  was  the 
whole  thing.  Porter  was  the  young  man  that  Edmund 
had  come  such  a  cropper  over.  Everything  was  embraced 
in  that  flash  of  inspiration.  He  issued  once  more  his 
peculiar  long-drawn  whistle  to  the  night  air  in  honour 
of  his  re-awakened  intelligence. 

Yes,  there  was  the  whole  matter  as  plain  as  the  back  of 
your  hand.  And  a  pretty  how-d'ye-do  it  was  !  There 
would  be  the  devil  to  pay.  He  had  let  himself  in  for  a 
nice  thing,  hanged  if  he  had  not  !  The  sense  of  his  position 
oppressed  him  dreadfully.  If  ever  he  had  had  any  tact, 
any  delicacy,  any  worldly  wisdom — and  very  grievously 
did  he  doubt  whether  he  had  ever  had  any  of  these 
delectable  things — he  must  prepare  to  utilize  them  now. 
Edmund  could  be  an  ugly  brute  when  you  once  got  his 
blood  up.  And  it  seemed  that  this  fragile  slip  of  a  thing, 
not  much  bigger  than  your  hat,  was  no  unworthy  daughter 
of  such  a  sire.  She  would  have  died  on  that  heap  of  fhnts 
by  the  side  of  the  road  rather  than  go  back  home. 

However,  this  was  not  the  time  to  dwell  on  the  dilemma 
in  which  he  had  so  suddenly  come  to  find  himself.  The 
lamp-posts  of  suburban  London  were  already  flitting 
past ;  it  had  become  perfectly  dark  ;  and  the  cold  burden 
in  his  arms  had  grown  a  good  deal  heavier.  His  immediate 
thoughts  must  be  for  that  worn-out  and  famished  little 
slip  of  womanhood  nestling  to  his  coat  for  warmth,  who, 
dead  lame  and  starving  as  she  was,  was  prepared  to  die 
rather  than  give  in. 

425 


BROKE   OF   COVENDEN 

"  It's  God's  mercy  I  met  old  Pearce !  Poor  little 
devil — poor  little  devil !  Rum  beggars  women,  when 
they  like  !  " 

Hardly  had  he  enunciated  this  pearl  of  wisdom  for  his 
own  consolation,  when  a  new  discovery  obtruded  itself 
upon  him.  His  small  niece  was  become  insensible  in 
his  arms. 


426 


CHAPTER   XXXV 

In  which  we  find  our  First  Comedian  once 
more  in  a  Happy  Vein 

THE  letter  Lord  Bosket  addressed  at  a  late  hour  that 
evening  to  Covenden  from  a  hotel  in  Northumberland 
Avenue,  was  the  longest  and  most  singular  he  ever  felt 
called  upon  to  pen  in  the  whole  course  of  his  unliterary 
life.  With  a  sure  instinct  that  was  worth  more  than  a 
superficial  observation  of  men  and  things,  he  addressed 
this  lucubration  to  his  sister,  rather  than  to  Delia's  father. 
A  mere  observer  would  have  said  without  hesitation  that 
the  child  was  far  less  likely  to  meet  with  tender  handling 
from  her  mother  than  from  him,  whose  affection  for  his 
girls,  one  and  all,  was  so  unbridled  ;  but  her  uncle's 
instinct  taught  him  better.  And  instinct  is  a  strange 
matter,  as  the  eminent  Sir  John  Falstaff  once  had  occasion 
to  remark. 

When  on  the  following  morning  Mrs.  Broke  found  an 
envelope  in  her  brother's  crude  and  uncertain  hand,  at 
the  side  of  her  plate,  she  smiled  faintly  to  observe  its 
thickness.  As  a  rule,  Charles's  correspondence  was 
conducted  by  the  medium  of  the  telegraph.  History 
was  indeed  getting  itself  written  at  a  fiirious  pace  when 
in  a  single  day  he  had  recourse  to  eight  pages  of  notepaper 
to  keep  up  with  the  march  of  events. 

He  began  his  letter  with  the  assurance  that  he,  and  he 
alone,  was  to  blame  for  what  had  happened.  Had  he  only 
had  the  sense  to  keep  quiet  things  might  have  been  other- 
wise. He  had  inadvertently  let  drop  at  the  breakfast  table 
that  morning  the  details  of  a  certain  incident  with  which 

427 


BROKE    OF   COVENDEN 

Edmund  was  very  well  acquainted.  He  then  proceeded 
to  give  a  resumi  of  the  providential  behaviour  of  old 
Pearce  at  the  cricket  match  ;  the  subsequent  pursuit  and 
capture  of  the  runaway  ;  and  went  on  to  convey  a  some- 
what forcible  idea  of  the  state  Delia  was  in  physically  and 
mentally,  and  laid  stress  on  the  fact,  with  the  aid  of  double 
lines,  under  the  words,  that  she  had  walked  forty  miles,  "  as 
near  as  damn  it,"  without  a  penny  in  her  pocket  with 
which  to  obtain  anything  to  eat  or  drink ;  without 
protection  from  the  sun  ;  and  that,  dead  lame  as  she  was, 
had  it  not  been  God's  mercy  that  he  should  have  been 
allowed  to  overtake  her,  there  was  that  within  her  that 
would  have  carried  her  on  and  on,  until  she  dropped  down 
dead  upon  the  road. 

Her  uncle  concluded  with  an  appeal.  He  was  sure 
that  she  (Jane)  would  see  the  thing  in  a  proper  light,  and 
make  things  as  easy  for  the  poor  little  devil  as  she  could ; 
but  somehow  he  had  not  the  same  confidence  in  Edmund. 
Edmund  had  a  heart  of  gold,  provided  you  did  not  get 
his  back  up,  but  if  once  that  operation  was  performed  he 
was  about  the  most  unreasonable  fellow  in  the  world. 
She  must  do  what  she  could  to  get  him  not  to  be  too  hard 
on  the  little  filly.  He  supposed,  strickly  speaking,  justice 
required  she  should  have  a  good  hiding,  or  something  of 
that  sort,  but  he  was  sure  that  to  adopt  such  a  course 
would  be  a  great  mistake.  If  anything  was  to  be  done, 
it  would  have  to  be  done  by  kindness.  Further,  he  stated 
that  his  own  position  in  the  matter  was  one  of  difficulty. 
They  would  expect  him,  of  course,  to  bring  her  home  again 
at  once  ;  but  he  could  hardly  do  that,  because  he  had 
already  given  his  word  not  to  do  so.  In  extenuation  of 
his  owTi  conduct  on  this  point,  he  said,  strange  as  it 
might  seem,  he  was  obliged  to  make  a  promise  to  the 
little  fool  to  remain  neutral  in  the  matter,  or  he  could 
have  done  absolutely  nothing  with  her  without  resorting 
to  brute  force  ;  and  he  hoped  they  did  not  expect  him  to  do 
that.  He  felt  himself  rather  to  be  in  the  position  of  a 
judge,  who  had  to  look  after  the  interests  of  both  parties  ; 
of  a  judge,  who  had  to  be  impartial  and  see  that  justice 
was  pro})erly  administered,  without  committing  himself 
to  either  side. 

428 


FIRST   COMEDIAN    IN    A    HAPPY    VEIN 

The  tone  of  his  long  letter,  however,  and  particularly 
this  latter  part,  was  hard  to  reconcile  with  this  judicial 
attitude.  It  was  special  pleading,  all  compact.  There 
seemed  no  attempt  in  it,  as  far  as  his  sister  could  see,  to 
observe  the  neutrality  of  which  he  made  a  profession. 
Finally  he  said  :  "Of  course,  her  behaviour  has  been 
that  of  the  damnedest  little  fool ;  but  you  can  tell  Edmund 
from  me  that  if  he  had  seen  her  dead  beat  on  that  heap 
of  flints  by  the  side  of  the  road,  and  night  coming  on,  a 
few  things  might  have  been  driven  into  him.  They  were 
into  me,  I  can  tell  you  !  And  you  can  tell  Edmund  from 
me  that  whatever  she's  done  she  is  not  far  off  the  finest 
little  filly  I  have  seen  in  my  life,  and  that  is  saying  a  lot, 
because  I  flatter  myself  I  know  one  when  I  see  one.  There 
are  points  about  the  poor  little  devil  that  make  you  pause 
and  wonder.  She  is  asleep  now  ;  and  although  she  has 
been  through  a  great  deal,  I  do  not  think  you  need  be 
anxious  about  her,  I  let  a  "  vet  "  see  her  as  soon  as  we 
got  here,  and  we  were  careful  about  her  feed  and  put 
her  to  bed  \vdth  hot-water  bottles.  Her  feet  are  in  a 
shocking  bad  state  ;  the  little  fool  came  away  in  a  pair 
of  racing  shoes  ;  and  I  am  not  sure  that  the  sun  has  not 
caught  her  head  a  bit.  But  the  "  vet  "  says  a  night's 
rest  will  do  wonders.  I  am  going  to  stay  with  her  here 
until  you  decide  on  what  is  to  be  done.  Do  not  blame  me 
for  not  bringing  her  back.  Can't  very  well  go  back  on 
my  promise.     P.S. — Mum's  the  word  with  the  missis." 

Mrs.  Broke  took  the  first  opportunity  of  discussing 
the  contents  of  this  letter  with  Broke.  They  had  both 
passed  a  peculiarly  unhappy  night,  but  this  communication 
did  not  bring  them  peace  of  mind.  Broke  read  every  line 
with  care  and  solemnity.  When  he  returned  it  to  her 
after  so  doing,  his  face  was  the  colour  of  the  grey-tinted 
paper  on  which  it  was  written.     He  did  not  speak. 

"  We  are  dead  out  of  luck,"  said  his  wife,  looking  at 
him  nervously.  Of  late  she  had  learned  to  hold  him  in 
fear. 

Broke  still  did  not  speak. 

"  I  think  Charles  has  acted  very  well,"  she  said,  with 
no  attempt  to  conceal  the  anxiety  of  her  tone.  "  And  lor 
once,  Edmund,  I  do  hope  you  will  allow  Charles  to  be  a 

429 


BROKE    OF    COVENDEN 

judge.  I  am  perfectly  convinced  that  his  attitude  is  the 
right  one.  We  have  alienated  the  child,  and  if  we  are  to 
win  her  back  again  we  can  only  hope  to  do  so  by  exhibiting 
the  greatest  care,  the  greatest  tact,  the  greatest  delicacy." 

"  What  do  you  mean  ?  "  said  Broke  in  a  husky  voice. 

"  There  is  hardly  a  need  to  explain.  It  is  easy  to  see 
from  the  way  in  which  Charles  has  worded  his  letter  that 
the  child  has  refused  to  return." 

Broke  turned  his  grim  eyes  on  his  wife. 

"  You  talk  as  though  you  want  her  to  return." 

"  Of  course — of  course,"  she  said,  with  a  slight  air  of 
bewilderment.  "  Of  course,  Edmund,  we  want  her  to 
return." 

Broke  was  seen  to  lift  his  head  and  take  the  limp  lines 
out  of  his  bearing. 

"  You  must  set  your  mind  at  rest  on  that  point.  She 
will  never  come  oack  here." 

His  deliberately  chosen  syllables  arrested  the  blood  in 
her  artenes. 

"  I — 1  don't  understand,"  she  said,  with  her  hands  going 
up  to  her  lace. 

The  dismal  weariness  in  her  voice  was  a  little  piteous. 

Man  and  wife  stood  to  confront  one  another  like  a  pair 
of  phantoms  who  afflict  each  other  with  their  presence. 
Broke  saw  the  look  on  her  face,  and  heard  the  tones  of  her 
voice.  He  laid  his  hand  on  her  shoulder  firmly,  but  with 
a  certain  kindness. 

"  Steady,  old  girl,"  he  said. 

"  It  is  a  little  inhuman,"  said  the  mother.  There  was  a 
chord  in  her  that  he  heard  then  for  the  first  time. 

Broke  waved  away  the  accusation  with  his  hands. 

"  I  must  decline  to  discuss  it,"  he  said,  "  in  any  aspect. 
It  does  not  admit  of  discussion." 

But  it  was  impossible  for  Mrs.  Broke  to  deliver  up  this 
second  child  without  a  struggle,  a  last  convulsive  struggle 
of  despair.  The  loss  of  her  son  had  told  on  her  redoubtable 
fibres  more  heavily  than  anybody  could  have  guessed. 
She  had  to  the  full  the  female  share  of  reverence  for  the 
dictates  of  the  male,  in  the  things  that  were  material,  for 
she  was  too  wise  to  hold  herself  in  any  way  above  her 
sex.     Her  intelligence  was  too  keen  to  allow  her  to  inter* 

430 


FIRST   COMEDIAN    IN    A    HAPPY    VEIN 

pose  it  against  one  who  had  an  immemorial  right  to  use  his 
own  ;  but  for  all  her  Minerva-like  attributes  she  was  pre- 
eminently a  woman.  She  could  not  stand  by  while  a 
second  child  of  her  flesh  perished  before  her  eyes,  without 
stretching  forth  a  hand  to  snatch  it  from  the  abyss. 

"  Edmund,"  said  the  bowed  woman,  clutching  at  a 
table  for  support,  "it  is  impossible  that  you  can  know 
what  you  say.  It  is  inhuman  to  punish  an  act  of  girlish 
folly  so  inexorably.  She  is  but  a  child.  She  did  not  know 
what  she  did." 

Broke  made  an  imperious  wave  of  the  arm,  as  though  to 
put  her  off.  His  head  was  aloof,  but  she  could  discern 
dimly  that  the  awful  clenched  ashen  look  was  in  him  still. 

"  You  cannot  do  it,  Edmund.  You  shall  not  do  it. 
Your  son  was  of  your  own  stuff,  and  it  was  your  right  to 
deal  with  him  as  you  thought  proper.  But  you  shall  not 
treat  a  woman  in  that  manner ;  you  shall  not,  indeed." 

Broke  was  like  a  statue. 

"  I  claim  my  prescriptive  right  as  a  woman  to  deal  with 
my  children  of  my  own  sex." 

"  You  have  no  jurisdiction  in  a  matter  of  this  kind," 
said  Broke  in  a  dry  voice. 

"  Then  I  claim  that  consideration  my  sex  is  accustomed 
to  receive  in  civilized  communities.  It  is  an  act  of  barbar- 
ism to  apply  the  same  code  to  women  as  to  men." 

"  They  can  be  equally  guilty." 

"  The  first  precept  of  our  civilization  should  teach  us  to 
condone  their  faults." 

"  I  shall  not  make  phrases  with  yon.  It  is  enough  that 
in  any  circumstances  I  decline  to  condone  disloyalty  in 
man  or  woman  of  my  name." 

"  You  cannot  mean  it,  Edmund.  You  cannot  know 
what  it  involves.     Whatever  is  to  become  of  her !  " 

Buffeted  by  this  brutality,  her  strength  was  failing. 
Her  voice  was  growing  high  and  weak. 

"  I  have  thought  about  that,"  said  Broke ;  "  I  am  about 
to  write  to  Charles  to  place  her  in  her  old  school  at  Chiswick 
until  she  is  of  age.  Until  then  I  will  maintain  her  there, 
because  the  law  requires  it." 

"  And  afterwards  ?  "  said  the  wretched  woman,  with  an 
eagerness  that  sprang  from  an  intolerable  anguish. 

431 


BROKE    OF    COVENDEN 

"  As  fax  as  I  am  concerned  personally  there  is  no  after- 
wards." 

"  You  cannot  mean  that !  Surely  you  will  then  con- 
sent to  receive  her  again.  After  she  has  expiated  her 
offence  you  will  take  her  back." 

"  There  are  offences  that  nothing  can  expiate,  that 
nothing  can  condone.  Disloyalty  is  the  first  of  them. 
And  as  you  force  me  to  say  it,  Jane,  let  me  tell  you  that, 
if  it  were  possible,  the  sex  makes  it  the  more  abomin- 
able." 

"  It  is  the  savage  speaking  again,"  said  the  wretched 
woman  drearily. 

"  I  can  bear  your  taunts,"  said  her  husband.  "  Cowards 
are  often  as  quick  with  their  tongues  as  they  are  with 
their  heels." 

Mrs.  Broke  quivered.  His  dreadful  unreason  was  un- 
nerving her. 

"  It  is  possible  even  to  drive  a  woman  too  far,  Edmund. 
I  must  warn  you." 

"  Ha,  poor  fool,  you  threaten  me  !  " 

His  sneer  turned  her  faithful  blood  into  ice. 

"  I  suppose  you  are  aware, "he  said,  with  a  brutal  absence 
of  vehemence,  "  that  the  abettors  of  the  guilty  run  the 
danger  of  being  arraigned.  You  will  not  be  wise  to  trespass 
too  far  on  your  privileges.  I  am  not  a  very  patient  man 
when  I  find  the  very  foundations  of  my  house  worm-eaten 
and  dry-rotted  with  treason  and  disloyalty.  I  am  slow 
to  take  up  the  knife  to  start  cutting,  but  once  having  done 
so  you  will  not  find  me  hkely  to  hesitate.  Two  pillars 
I  have  removed  already  ;  do  not  force  me  to  cut  away  the 
centrepiece  also." 

The  wife  of  thirty  years  blushed  a  vivid  colour,  and  re- 
coiled from  his  words  with  horror  taking  her  by  the  heart. 
A  full  minute  of  silence  passed,  in  which  the  woman  of 
ineffable  wisdom  and  mastery  fought  passionately  for  her 
self-control.     After  a  frantic  struggle  she  recovered  it. 

"  You  must  please  forgive  me,  Edmund,"  she  said  with 
an  utter  humility  of  voice  and  manner,  "  if  the  words  I 
have  used  have  been  other  than— than  you  think  they 
ought  to  have  been.  Women  have  not  the  hardihood  of 
men  if  you  deal  them  blows  over  the  heart.     We  are  some- 

432 


FIRST   COMEDIAN    IN    A    HAPPY    VEIN 

times  compelled  by  nature  to  cry  out  a  little  wildly  then, 
and  if  you  hear  us  you  must  not  heed  what  we  say." 

"  I — ah,  forgive  you,"  said  our  hero  with  an  expansive 
magnanimity. 

That  was  a  line  generally  admired  by  the  critics  in  the 
stalls  of  the  Olympian  Theatre. 

"  Will  you  not  consent  to  receive  her  again  ?"  said  the 
unhappy  woman,  immediately  relapsing  out  of  the  self- 
control  she  had  with  so  much  difficulty  imposed  upon  her- 
self, now  that  the  voice  of  her  lord  sounded  once  more  in 
her  ears  as  that  of  the  human  being  in  whose  bosom  she 
was  wont  to  lie. 

Broke  had  no  desire  to  be  harsh  with  one  whom  a  long 
and  great  experience  had  taught  him  was  as  faithful  a 
soul  as  any  in  the  world.  He  summoned  his  habitual  ten- 
derness for  her. 

"  My  poor,  old  girl,"  he  said,  "  why  harrow  your  feelings 
in  this  way  ?  You  remind  me  of  a  person  who  has  a  horror 
of  death  walking  into  the  Morgue  to  look  at  it." 

"  Are  you  wholly  without  bowels,  Edmund  ?  Do  you 
never  forgive  ?  "  Unrestrained  nature  had  expelled  ex- 
pedience, and  was  driving  her  furiously  again. 

"  You  have  lived  with  me  long  enough  to  answer  that 
question  for  yourself,"  said  Broke,  without  resentment. 
She  was  a  woman  and  a  mother  after  all,  poor  old  girl  ! 

"  It  begins  to  seem  almost,"  the  unhappy  woman  went 
on  with  a  haggard  feebleness  that  perfect  sanity  would 
not  have  allowed  her,  "  that  I  have  been  yoked  all  these 
years  with  an  ogre,  a  sort  of  inhuman  monster,  and  I  have 
not  known  it.  The  first  I  could  hardly  bear ;  the  second 
may  be  too  much." 

Broke  did  not  look  at  his  wife's  face.  Also  he  tried  not  to 
listen  to  her  words.  It  was  hardly  fair  to  her  to  hear 
them  ;  he  had  a  verj'  chivalrous  disposition.  For  she  spoke 
no  longer  as  the  cool  and  temperate  woman  of  affairs.  In 
such  a  speech  as  this  there  was  not  a  vestige  to  be  recog- 
nized of  the  suavely  ordered  diction,  the  mellow  candour, 
the  amiable  cynicism,  the  slightly  inhuman  wisdom  of  her 
who  so  long  had  preached  the  world's  doctrine  of  expedi- 
ence. Indeed,  had  he  been  in  a  mood  for  laughter,  such  a 
melodramatic  change  in  her  must  have  caused  him  to 

4']?>  EE 


BROKE   OF    COVENDEN 

indulge  in  it.  Jane  in  a  histrionic  vein  was  somewhat  like 
Machiavelli  in  a  burst  of  confidence. 

However,  let  others  laugh  at  that  spectacle.  As  a. 
woman  and  a  mother  something  was  her  due.  And  as  a 
man  and  a  father  something  was  as  indubitably  his.  He 
bled  as  well  as  she.  It  was  his  fate  to  be  denied  a  recog- 
nition of  that  fact,  but  such  was  the  supposed  austerity  of 
his  sex,  that  he  must  suffer  that  unfairness.  Women  are 
known  to  be  unjust.  The  pangs  of  maternity  may  be  great, 
but  are  there  no  nerves  and  blood-vessels  in  husbands  and 
fathers  by  which  they  also  can  be  taught  to  feel  ?  Had 
there  been  no  raw  wounds  gaping  in  him  there  might  have 
been  a  better  hope  for  them  both.  The  same  guarantee  of 
a  lofty  disinterestedness  was  with  him  here  in  the  case  of 
his  daughter  as  in  that  of  his  son.  As  it  was,  his  own 
desperate  pangs  furnished  him  with  the  strength  to  bear 
him  on  his  course.  From  them  he  derived  the  vital 
nervous  force  to  sit  down  then  and  there  and  write  a  letter 
of  instruction  to  his  brother-in-law.  It  embodied,  with 
cruel  effectualness,  the  decree  he  had  issued  to  his  wife. 
If  his  right  hand  offended,  he  struck  it  off. 

He  did  not  show  this  letter  to  the  child's  mother,  and 
she  did  not  ask  to  see  it.  Concealing  it  in  the  pocket  of 
his  coat,  he  went  straight  to  the  stables,  procured  a  horse, 
rode  to  Cuttisham,  where  the  nearest  post-office  was,  and 
posted  it  with  his  own  hands. 


434 


CHAPTER  XXXVI 

Enter  a  Messenger  from  the  Courts  of. 
Hymen 

IF  Broke's  ideal  was  loyalty,  his  instinct  at  the  period 
he  went  to  wive  must  have  been  very  sure  and 
remarkable.  The  writing  and  posting  of  this  letter  taxed 
to  the  utmost  the  sovereign  quality  in  Mrs.  Broke.  It 
was  a  chief  glory  of  her  character,  and  an  instance  of  the 
divine  patience  of  her  sex,  that,  broken  and  shattered  as 
she  was  already  by  the  incident  of  her  son,  she  did  not  in 
the  end  allow  this  second  manifestation  of  her  husband's 
disposition  to  wrench  them  asunder. 

It  was  a  rather  heroic  devotion.  From  whatever 
standpoint  a  woman  may  take  her  outlook  on  life,  she 
cannot  suffer  the  children  of  her  heart  to  be  cast  away 
without  nursing  a  bitter  resentment  against  the  instru- 
ment of  her  distress,  even  if  it  happen  to  be  Almighty 
God.  It  would  have  been  fatally  easy  for  a  smaller 
nature,  with  its  weakened  mental  forces,  to  break  away 
from  Broke,  and  for  its  own  solace  repudiate  those  drastic 
acts  of  which  as  husband  and  father  he  had  shown 
himself  to  be  capable.  Her  instincts  cried  out  to  her  to 
denounce  and  put  off  the  inhuman  monster  who  had 
trampled  under  foot  her  sacred  maternity  :  her  character 
kept  her  staunch.  The  same  attributes  that  had  enabled 
her  to  keep  the  sinking  ship  so  long  afloat  came  now  to 
her  aid  in  this,  the  most  instant  crisis  of  her  life.  That 
indomitable  resolution,  thrice  welded  in  the  harsh  furnace 
of  necessity,  rendered  her  strong,  when  every  nerve  cried 

435 


BROKE    OF   COVENDEN 

out  that  loyalty  could  no  longer  be  expected,  no  longer 
demanded  of  her. 

In  abiding  passively  by  this  second  decree  Mrs.  Broke 
saw,  as  in  the  case  of  the  first,  just  one  remote  gleam  of 
hope.  That  favourite  doctrine,  laissez-faire,  must  be 
invoked,  in  the  hope  that  as  time  went  on  things  might 
follow  a  less  inexorable  trend.  If  Delia  re-entered  her 
old  school  for  a  year  or  perhaps  two,  and  atoned  for  her 
misconduct  by  a  subsequent  exemplary  behaviour  that 
had  formerly  been  hers,  there  was  still  a  hope,  however 
faint,  that  time,  the  healer  of  all  wounds,  might  also 
assuage  the  affront  to  her  father's  implacable  spirit.  It 
was  not  yet  the  hour  to  despair  of  ever  getting  her  back 
into  the  fold.  Her  knowledge  of  Broke  told  her  how 
remote  this  hope  was  ;  but  at  least  the  decree  against  her 
youngest  daughter  could  not  be  quite  as  irrevocable  as 
that  against  her  only  son.  Delia  had  rebelled,  it  was 
true,  but  as  yet  she  could  not  be  said  to  have  done  any- 
thing that  put  her  for  ever  outside  the  pale. 

During  the  long  week  of  blood  and  tears  that  followed 
tne  sending  of  the  letter  the  unhappy  woman  was  in  the 
thick  of  conflict.  Morning,  afternoon,  and  evening,  and 
in  the  long  watches  of  the  night,  it  was  a  perpetual 
struggle  of  tooth  and  nail,  yet  in  the  end  she  emerged 
victorious,  but  very  spent  and  breathless  and  faint. 
During  that  period  she  saw  at  least  two  letters  lying 
unopened  in  the  handwriting  of  her  brother  addressed  to 
her  husband.  Broke  did  not  show  them  to  her,  nor 
subsequently  did  he  allude  to  their  contents.  Valiantly 
she  strove  to  defeat  all  conjectures  concerning  them, 
and  by  sheer  force  of  will  nearly  succeeded  in  so  doing. 

It  was  not  until  nearly  a  fortnight  had  passed  that  the 
matter  entered  a  new  phase.  Her  brother  presented 
himself  in  person  one  afternoon.  She  noted  immediately 
that  his  manner  was  rather  more  hangdog  and  querulous 
than  usual.  Something  appeared  to  be  weighing  on  his 
mind.  He  had  the  air  of  one  who,  having  been  com- 
missioned to  break  bad  news,  is  so  oppressed  with  the 
sense  of  his  responsibility  that  forthwith  he  adopts  a 
demeanour  calculated  to  raise  extravagant  fears.  Pre- 
sently,   after    drinking    two    whiskies    and    sodas,    much 

43^ 


A   HYMENEAL    MESSENGER 

chewing  of  the  straw  in  his  mouth,  much  coarse  lan- 
guage, much  shiftiness  and  irresolution,  he  made  a  pro- 
posal that  they  should  go  into  another  room,  as  he  had 
something  important  to  tell  her. 

Mrs.  Broke  led  the  way  to  her  sitting-room. 

"  I'm  glad  Edmund  ain't  about,"  said  Lord  Bosket, 
with  the  air  of  a  criminal,  "  for  I'm  not  quite  sure 
how  he  will  take  it,  do  you  see  ?  I  think  it  will  be  better 
for  you  to  break  it  to  him,  Jane.  You  understand  his 
ways  more,  and  know  him  better  than  I  do." 

"  What  has  happened  ?  "  said  his  sister,  already  oppressed 
by  his  circumlocution. 

"  The  little  filly  was  married  this  mornin'." 

Mrs.  Broke  shuddered  a  little  and  laughed  a  little  in 
the  same  instant  of  time. 

"  What  do  you  mean,  Charles  ?     Explain,  please." 

"  She  was  married  this  mornin'  by  special  licence  to 
that  writing  feller  ;  and  I've  just  seen  'em  off  to  Paris 
for  the  honeymoon.  From  Paris  they  are  goin'  to  the 
Mediterranean,    and   then   on   to  Algiers." 

The  weary  bewilderment  in  the  face  of  Mrs.  Broke 
increased  rather  than  grew  less. 

"  The  world  moves  a  little  too  fast  for  me  just  now.  I 
am  out  of  breath  with  trying  to  keep  pace  with  it.  I — I 
confess  I  don't  quite  know  where  I  am." 

"  Of  course  you  will  say  it  is  all  my  doing,"  said  Lord 
Bosket  gloomily.  "  But  I  couldn't  hold  that  little  filly. 
She  took  her  head  right  away  from  the  start.  Twice  I 
wrote  to  Edmund  after  that  pretty  letter  he  sent  me  to 
tell  him  that  there  was  not  much  chance  of  my  bein' 
able  to  carry  it  out,  but  he  didn't  trouble  to  reply. 
Besides,  I  don't  mind  tellin'  you,  Jane,  that  I  didn't 
mean  to  carry  it  out.  I  thought  that  letter  was  the 
rottenest  ever  written.  I  had  not  the  heart  to  show 
it  to  the  poor  little  gell." 

Mrs.  Broke  looked  at  her  brother  with  a  faint  tinge  of 
horror  in  her  scarlet  face. 

"  Did  you  see  that  letter,  Jane  ?  " 

"  No,  Charles,  I  did  not ;  but  I  was  aware  of  the 
contents." 

"  Oh  !     Well,  my  gell,  I  don't  think  I  should  be  proud 

437 


BROKE    OF   COVENDEN 

of  knowin*  'em  if  I  were  you.  You  ought  to  be  ashamed 
of  yourselves,  both  of  you,  for  sendin'  a  letter  like  that  to 
a  poor  little  gell  at  her  time  of  life.'^ 

Lord  Bosket  concluded  his  observations  with  a  sudden 
heat. 

"  I  don't  mind  tellin'  you,  Jane,"  he  added,  "  that  that 
letter  got  me  on  the  raw.  I  wonder  if  I  would  have 
written  a  letter  like  that  if  I  had  had  nice  little  fillies  of 
my  own." 

"  Don't,  Charles,  please,"  said  the  unhappy  woman, 
with  bowed  head.     "  We  suffered  great  provocation." 

"  Provocation  be  damned.  Tell  her  to  come  back, 
and  promise  her  a  good  hidin'  when  she  does  come  ;  or 
fetch  her  yourself,  and  see  that  she  gets  one  ;  but  there 
is  no  need  to  tell  the  poor  little  gell  that  she  has  ceased 
to  be  your  daughter.  But  mind  you,  Jane,  that  wasn't 
you.  I'll  lay  a  thousand  to  five  that  that  was  Edmund. 
I've  always  said  that  Edmund  can'  be  an  awful  swine 
when  he  likes." 

"  We  were  very  much  upset,  Charles,  when  that  letter 
was  written,"  said  his  sister  weakly.  She  endeavoured  to 
associate  herself  with  the  offending  document  for  her 
husband's  credit.     She  did  not  succeed. 

"  Upset  !  "  said  Lord  Bosket  contemptuously. 
"  Upset  !  But  don't  tell  me  that  you  had  a  hand  in 
it.  You  had  not,  my  gell.  You  could  not  ha'  written 
that  letter,  any  more  than  I  could  myself.  It  ain't 
in  you.  It  was  Edmund,  the  ugly  brute.  I  expect 
he'll  be  a  tearin'  lunatic  when  he  hears  about  this 
mornin's  performance.  It's  lucky  I've  not  got  to  tell  him. 
But  mind  you,  Jane,  I  believe  it  is  for  the  best.  The 
thing  was  done  accordin'  to  Cocker,  mind  you.  I  gave 
the  little  filly  away  myself,  and  saw  'em  off  from  Victoria 
afterwards.  And  they  are  not  goin'  to  starve.  I  saw 
that  Porter  feller  once  or  twice  in  the  paddock  before 
the  event,  and  everything  was  settled  accordin'  to  the 
card." 

"  Am  I  to  take  it  from  you,  Charles,  that  you  aided 
and  abetted  them  ?  "  said  Mrs.  Broke  in  a  bewildered 
tone. 

"  You  can  take  it  from  me,  my  gell,  just  as  you  damn 
438 


A    HYMENEAL    MESSENGER 

please.  1  suppose  there  will  be  another  "  Scene  in  the 
House  "  now  I've  dens  it,  but  if  I  was  to  say  I  was  sorry 
I  should  be  lying.  It  wasn't  impulse,  mind  you ;  I 
looked  at  the  matter  all  ways  on,  and  came  to  see  that 
the  best  thing  I  could  do  was  to  give  'em  a  leg  up.  Edmund 
would  not  have  the  poor  little  gell  back,  and  in  all  my  born 
days  I  have  not  seen  a  pair  cut  out  so  pretty  for  double, 
harness.  Nice  pair — very.  And  if  I  know  anything, 
those  two  young  devils  were  not  goin'  to  stand  any  of 
our  nonsense.  Talk  about  fire.  I  never  saw  anything 
to  touch  'em  !  I'll  lay  a  thousand  to  five  they  would 
ha'  started  bucking  if  I  had  tried  coercion.  Once  they 
were  together  I  don't  see  what  was  goin'  to  hold  'em. 

"  There  was  the  law,"  said  Mrs.  Broke. 

"  So  there  was.  Funny  I  didn't  think  of  that.  But 
it  makes  no  odds.  You  and  Edmund  and  me  and  all  the 
judges  on  the  bench  would  not  ha'  held  'em  at  the 
finish.  If  I  know  anything  of  bosses,  they  are  a  pair  of 
customers,  those  two.  They  would  ha'  been  at  home  on 
any  course  you  liked  to  put  'em.  They'd  ha'  gone 
over  timber  and  taken  the  water,  they  would.  From  the 
time  I  first  saw  our  little  tit  on  that  heap  of  stones,  it 
was  a  moral  that  once  she  had  started  there  would  be 
no  gettin'  her  back  again  to  the  post.  She  would  ha' 
died  first.  I've  seen  some  rum  women  in  my  time,  Jane, 
but  never  one  to  touch  her.  And  for  that  matter  I  might  as 
well  tell  you  that  Edmund  could  ha'  saved  himself  the 
trouble  of  writin'  that  letter.  It  was  a  thousand  to  five  that 
his  little  gell  would  never  trouble  him  again.  I  thought 
at  first,  don't  you  know,  that  she  was  so  obstinate  because 
she  was  done  up  ;  but  the  next  mornin',  when  she  had 
put  in  a  sound  night's  rest  and  she  got  up  in  her  right 
mind,  do  j^ou  know  what  she  said  ?  I  suppose  I  had 
better  not  tell  you." 

"  I  should  prefer  to  know,  Charles." 

"  Well,  says  our  little  Miss  Broke,  '  God  may  forgive 
him,  but  I  never  will !  '  meanin'  her  father.  It  was  said 
in  cold  blood,  mind  you.  Pretty  good,  that,  for  a  bit 
of  a  thing  not  out  of  her  teens,  and  not  much  bigger  than 
a  brown  mouse.  She  was  as  quiet  and  soft  about  it  as 
you   please :  no   tears,   no   fuss,   no  no  thin'.     Somehow, 

439 


BROKE    OF   COVENDEN 

Jane,  that  got  home  on  me.     A  damned  rotten  thing  to 
say,  what  ?     There's  a  bit  of  Edmund  himself  in  her." 

A  look  of  wan  terror  had  come  into  the  face  of  Mrs. 
Broke.  There  was  no  need  for  her  brother  to  strike  that 
analogy ;  the  wife  and  mother  had  already  struck  it 
for  herself. 

"  Queen  Elizabeth,"  she  said,  trying  a  laugh. 

Her  attempt,  however,  was  such  a  ghastly  performance 
that  it  merely  served  to  emphasize  the  poignant  horror  in 
her  eyes. 

"  I'm  not  sure,  Jane,"  said  her  brother,  "  that  I  would 
not  rather  have  had  that  old  hag  to  deal  with  than  little 
Miss  Delia  Broke.  She's  a  record.  If  she  made  a  row 
and  howled  a  bit,  you  would  know  better  where  you  were. 
But,  bless  you,  she  is  as  demure  as  a  harlot  at  a  christen- 
ing all  the  holy  time  ;  and  the  moment  you  take  a  look 
at  those  eyes  of  hers,  somehow  you  know  you  are  done. 
Blood's  a  rum  thing.  That  Httle  gell  puts  you  in  mind 
of  Roman  martyrs,  and  that  class  of  people.  Sort  of 
reminds  you,  don't  you  know,  of  Boadicea,  Godiva, 
Joan  of  Arc,  and  that  crowd.  I  call  her  as  pretty 
a  bit  o'  stuff  as  ever  I  saw,  but  I  don't  crave  to  have  the 
handlin'  of  her,  thank  you.  All  the  same,  runaway  or 
no  runaway,  I  shouldn't  disown  her  if  I  was  her  papa." 

"  I  suppose,  Charles,  we  ought  to  be  very  much  in- 
debted to  you  for  the  time  you  have  bestowed  upon  her 
affairs,  and  the  trouble  to  which  you  have  been  put," 
said  Mrs.  Broke,  striving  to  re-assume  her  armour  of  suave 
practical  matter-of-fact.  It  was  a  difficult  process,  but 
the  valiant  woman  got  it  on  somehow.  "  I  am  sure, 
Charles,  you  have  acted  for  the  best.  If  you  had  not 
gone  after  her  so  promptly  I  shudder  to  think  what  might 
have  happened  to  a  penniless  and  distraught  creature 
like  that,  alone  in  London." 

"  I  can  tell  you,"  said  her  brother,  with  grim  brevity. 
"  There  would  ha'  been  the  body  of  a  little  gell  to  identify — ■ 
found  dead  on  a  doorstep  in  the  Charing  Cross  Road 
at  one  in  the  mornin'." 

"  I  must  ask  you  to  spare  my  feelings,  Charles,"  said 
his  sister,  shuddering  at  this  realism. 

"  You  didn't  spare  that  poor  little  gell's,  none  of  you," 

440 


A    HYMENEAL    MESSENGER 

said  Lord  Bosket,  with  a  gloomy  indignation  again  appear- 
ing in  him. 

"  I  should  have  come  to  relieve  you  of  the  charge  of 
the  child  immediately,"  said  Mrs.  Broke,  "  had  not  Edmund 
proved  so  unreasonable.  And  had  I  come  I  am  afraid 
I  could  have  done  no  good.  But  tell  me,  Charles,  this 
man.  Porter,  what  opinion  did  you  form  of  him  ?  " 

"  I  have  already  given  you  my  opinion  of  him,  my 
gell."       • 

"  Do  you  not  think  you  might  be  a  little  more  explicit 
in — in  the  Hght  of  what  has  happened  ?  " 

"  Well,  I  went  to  see  him  at  the  office  of  his  paper.  I 
daresay  you  will  be  interested  to  know,  my  gell,  that  he 
had  still  got  a  tidy-sized  mark  on  his  forehead,  but  that 
he  had  had  his  front  teeth  put  in  again.  And  it  didn't 
take  long  for  me  to  grant  him  a  licence.  A  very  straight- 
forward, honest,  unassuming  feller  he  seemed  to  be  to 
me,  and  anxious  to  run  straight.  He  didn't  allude  to 
that  little  occurrence,  naturally  ;  but  somehow  he  had 
not  the  air  of  a  man  who  carries  a  grievance,  and  as  soon 
as  I  saw  that,  I  chalked  him  up  a  mark.  Give  me  the 
feller  who  can  take  a  good  hidin',  whether  he's  deserved 
it  or  not." 

Mrs.  Broke  winced. 

"  And  it  struck  me,  Jane,  that  he  had  got  a  mind  of  his 
own,  had  that  feller.  He  said  he  should  stand  by  her 
whatever  happened  now  that  she  had  come  to  him.  I 
gave  him  another  mark  for  that.  Grit,  my  gell.  He 
said  he  had  no  wish  to  put  himself  in  the  wrong  in  the 
eyes  of  the  law,  but  law  or  no  law,  he  was  goin'  to  stand 
by  her.  I  must  say  I  liked  the  style  of  the  feller  alto- 
gether. Nothin*  fussy,  nothin'  high-falutin',  but  straight 
as  daylight,  and  as  smart  as  blazes.  I  came  away  with 
the  feelin'  that  things  were  pannin'  out  better  than  we 
could  have  hoped." 

"  Did  he  strike  you  as  a  gentleman,  Charles  ?  " 

"  Wish  I  was  as  good  a  one,"  said  our  friend  gloomily. 

"  I  mean,  Charles,  in  a  conventional  sense." 

"  He's  not  one  of  the  haw-haw  brigade,  if  that's 
"what  you  mean.  And  I've  seen  bosses  cut  prettier  in 
the  jib.     But  he's  one  to  be  reckoned  with  in  any  com- 

441 


BROKE  OF   COVENDEN 

pany.  I  don't  remember  to  have  met  one  so  thorough. 
I'd  ha'  trusted  him  with  one  of  my  own.  And,  mind  you, 
I  went  to  him  right  up  to  the  muzzle  in  prejudice." 

"  I  suppose  you  know  he  is  the  son  of  a  bookseller  at 
Cuttisham  ?  " 

"  Very  creditable  to  the  booksellers  of  Cuttisham  if 
that  is  so.  If  they  can  produce  that  sort  they  are  a  fine 
body." 

"  But,  my  dear  Charles !  " 

"  There's  no  *  my  dear  Charles  !  '  about  it.  Let  every 
tub  stand  on  its  own  bottom,  I  say.  When  you  meet  a 
dam  fool,  give  him  the  order  of  the  boot ;  when  you  meet 
a  wise  man,  you  can  kindly  remove  your  hat.  And 
I'll  lay  a  monkey  to  nothing  you'll  want  a  new  toe- 
cap  before  you've  worn  out  the  brim  of  your  Lincoln 
and  Bennett.  If  I  felt  myself  to  be  the  equal  of  that 
feEer,  I  should  hold  up  my  head  a  bit  higher  than  I  do 
at  present,  I  don't  mind  tellin'  you." 

"  I  am  a  little  astonished  by  the  idealist  picture  you 
paint  of  him,  my  dear  Charles." 

"  No  need  to  be,  my  gell.  I've  seen  him  not  once  or 
twice,  mind  you,  but  a  dozen  times.  I  think  I'm  a  bit 
of  a  judge  of  a  boss,  but  I  never  ran  over  the  points  of 
one  that  had  got  to  carry  my  racin'  colours  like  I  did  his. 
One  of  your  solid  sort,  who  are  all  hone  and  brain  and  guts. 
You  don't  think,  Jane,  do  you,  that  I  should  ha'  handed 
our  little  gell  to  a  feller  that  I  wouldn't  back  to  my  last 
'  lord  o'  the  manor  '  ?  " 

"  I  do  not,  Charles.     I  do  you  that  justice." 

"  Very  good  of  you,  I'm  sure.  But,  in  my  opinion, 
they  will  be  about  the  best  mated  pair  in  England.  They 
are  made  for  one  another,  you  might  say,  like  a  cup  and 
saucer.  In  my  judgment,  that  little  filly  of  ours  wants 
a  man  of  that  sort,  or  none.  A  common  feller,  with  no 
mind  and  no  character,  would  not  do  for  her." 

"  And  he  can  afford  to  maintain  her,  Charles  ?  " 

"  He  has  fourteen  hundred  a  j-ear  of  his  own,  roughly 
speaking,  and  I  hear  he  is  a  risin'  man.  His  chief  tells 
me  that  before  long  the  world  is  goin'  to  hear  from  him. 
In  the  meantime  I  have  fixed  another  five  hundred  a  year' 
on  the  little  filly  m}self,  just  to  keep  'em  from  starvin'. 

442 


A   HYMENEAL    MESSENGER 

I  knew  Edmund  couldn't,  and  if  he  could  he  wouldn't." 

Mrs.  Broke  was  touched  by  this  concrete  example  of 
her  brother's  goodness  of  heart. 

"  I  don't  know  how  we  can  thank  you,  Charles,  for  all 
you  have  done,"  she  said  humbly.  "  You  have  always 
been  the  truest  friend  we  have  had.  There  seems  no 
end  to  your  kindnesses." 

"  Tut,  tut,"  said  her  brother,  with  a  shght  display  of 
uneasiness,  "  no  need  to  go  into  trifles.  It  is  no  more 
than  anybody  else  would  ha'  done  in  the  circumstances. 
They  might  ha'  stopped  short  of  the  ceremony,  I  daresay 
they  would  ;  but  let  folks  say  what  they  like,  I  am  con- 
vinced it  will  turn  out  sound." 

Lord  Bosket  rose  to  go.  As  he  was  taking  his  depar- 
ture he  encountered  Broke,  who  was  coming  across  the 
hall.  Their  usual  informal  greetings  were  exchanged. 
It  then  struck  Lord  Bosket  with  surprise  that  his  brother- 
in-law  refrained  from  alluding  to  the  subject  which  had 
dominated  his  own  thoughts  for  a  fortnight  past.  So 
great  was  his  rehef  at  thus  providentially  finding  himself 
in  a  position  to  avoid  this  topic,  that,  on  his  own  part,  he 
studiously  refrained  from  making  a  reference  to  it.  All 
the  same,  it  was  very  singular  that  Edmund  should  omit 
to  speak  of  it  in  any  way.  However,  as  Lord  Bosket 
proceeded  to  pass  out  at  the  door,  he  turned  back  to  say 
over  his  shoulder — 

"  By  the  way,  Edmund,  you  had  better  go  and  have  a 
word  with  Jane.     She  has  got  something  to  tell  you." 

Delia's  cunning  uncle  then  disappeared  through  the 
door  hastily,  lest  her  father  should  recall  him  to  explain 
what  the  something  was. 

Broke  did  not  go  to  his  wife  there  and  then.  He  had 
no  doubt  the  matter  could  wait  until  he  had  laid  his  mind 
at  rest  on  a  point  in  turnips  which  he  had  pledged  himself 
to  look  up  in  a  back  number  of  the  Field.  Having  con- 
vinced himself  after  researches  lasting  nearly  an  hour 
that  the  Field  of  the  year  before  last  said  just  what  he 
thought  it  did  say,  although  he  had  not  been  absolutely 
sure,  he  went  to  ask  his  wife  what  she  wanted. 

When  he  confronted  her  he  was  rather  surprised  by  the 
amount   of  emotion   that   wns   for  once   reflected  in   her 

443 


BROKE   OF   COVENDEN 

impassive  face.  It  would  have  been  hard  to  find  an 
obtuser  person  than  he,  but  the  change  that  had  been 
taking  place  in  her  recently  could  not  escape  even  his 
perfunctory  eyes. 

"  Charles  said  you  had  something  to  tell  me." 

"  I  wanted  to  tell  you  that  Delia  married  that  man 
this  morning." 

She  made  her  announcement  without  an  instant  of 
preface. 

He  received  it  with  the  blankest  indifference.  The 
news  elicited  no  spark  of  recognition. 

His  wife  could  hardly  dissemble  her  astonishment.  She 
had  looked  for  a  repetition  of  some  kind  at  least  of  the  some- 
what distressing  scene  that  followed  a  similar  announce- 
ment in  the  case  of  Billy.  But  Broke  stood  stohd  and 
impregnable.  He  paid  no  more  heed  than  if  he  had  not 
heard  a  word  she  said.  Her  immediate  feeling  was  that 
of  relief,  although  even  as  it  regaled  her  there  was  the 
consciousness  that  his  attitude  was  uncanny. 

"I  hope,  Edmund,"  she  said 'anxiously,  nervously, 
"  that  you  view  it  in  the  same  light  I  do  myself.  I  believe 
it  to  be  rather  providential.  The  child  has  made  a  hope- 
less mess  of  her  life,  but  I  am  not  sure  that  when  all  is 
said  she  has  not  patched  it  up  as  well  as  could  be  expected. 
Charles  quite  thinks  so.  Indeed,  he  has  helped  rather 
activelv  to  bring  it  about.  The  man  has  earned  his  entire 
confidence,  and  I  think,  Edmund,  we  must  allow  that 
Charles,  with  all  his  foibles,  is  quite  a  shrewd  judge  of 
character.  Charles  has  behaved  most  handsomely.  He 
has  given  the  child  five  hundred  a  year  for  herself  ;  and 
the  man,  I  understand,  has  fourteen  hundred  a  year  of 
his  own,  and  excellent  prospects." 

Broke  stood  immovable  as  granite.  Deliberately  he 
was  not  hearing  a  word  she  was  uttering.  He  suppressed 
a  yawn  with  his  hand.  Mrs.  Broke  having  lost  her  initial 
sense  of  relief,  was  now  afflicted  severely  with  this  attitude. 
She  would  almost  have  preferred  a  scene. 

"  I  hope  you  recognize,  Edmund,"  she  said,  with  a 
stranqe  solicitude,  "  how  essential  all  this  is  to  the  welfare 
of  the  child." 

"  On  the  contrary,"  said  Broke.  "  I  recognize  nothing 
444 


A    HYMENEAL    MESSENGER 

of  the  matter.  It  does  not  interest  me.  It  was  closed 
a  fortnight  ago,  and  in  any  circumstances  it  cannot  be 
re-opened." 

' '  But,  Edmund " 

Broke  cut  her  down  with  his  hand. 

"  I  shall  be  glad,  Jane,  when  you  bring  yourself  to 
feel  that  that  is  the  case.  It  is  futile,  a  waste  of  our  time, 
for  you  to  attempt  to  re-open  a  subject  that  is  closed 
once  and  for  all." 

"  But,  Edmund !  " 

"Is  this  all  you  wish  to  speak  to  me  about  ?  " 

"  It  is,"  said  his  wife.     She  was  cut  to  the  heart. 

Broke  sauntered  out  of  the  room  in  the  leisurely  manner 
in  which  he  had  entered  it. 


445 


CHAPTER  XXXVII 
The  Lady  Bosket  at  Home 

ON  quitting  his  sister,  Lord  Bosket  went  to  his  country 
seat,  some  five  miles  from  Covenden.  He  had  been 
absent  a  fortnight ;  and  leaving  London  that  morning 
he  had  gone  direct  to  the  distressed  family  of  Covenden. 
The  man  and  the  clothes  he  had  telegraphed  for  after  his 
unpremeditated  excursion  to  town  had  been  sent  on  in 
advance.  No  sooner  did  he  arrive  at  Hipsley  in  his  own 
person  that  afternoon,  than  the  butler  greeted  him. 

"  Her  ladyship  told  me  to  say,  my  lord,  that  she  wished 
to  see  5^ou  the  moment  you  returned.  She  is  in  her  study, 
my  lord." 

In  the  impassive  person  who  made  this  announcement. 
Lord  Bosket's  grunt  did  not  cause  an  inch  of  eyebrow  to 
be  displaced.  Nor  did  his  long-drawn  whistle  produce  a 
visible  emotion  in  that  implicit  breast. 

"  How's  her  plumage,  Paling  ?  " 

"  Standing  up,  my  lord." 

"What  ho!  You  had  better  get  me  a  whisky-and-soda, 
then,  before  I  go  and  face  the  music." 

A  little  afterwards,  reinforced  by  this  elixir.  Lord  Bosket 
betook  himself  to  the  study  of  the  gifted  lady.  She  was 
discovered  seated  in  a  revolving  chair  before  a  desk,  writing 
copiously  on  blue  foolscap  with  a  feathered  quill.  At  a 
side  table,  a  sort  of  annexe  to  the  Mount  Parnassus  where 
sat  the  child  of  the  gods,  the  daughter  of  the  Muses,  was 
seated  a  second  lady  severe  of  years,  of  aspect  also,  a 
spinster  by  force  of  circumstances,  and  a  typewriter  by 
inclination  tempered  with  necessity.  She  was  in  the 
pursuit  of  her  calling  even  now.     A  Remington  machine 

446 


THE    LADY    BOSKET    AT    HOME 

was  clucking  oat  into  a  fair  copy  the  pellucid  lines  of 
Love  Eclectic :  a  Sonnet  Cycle,  immediately  antecedent  to 
its  being  given  to  the  slow-breathing  peoples  of  the  earth 
in  nine  monthly  magazines  at  once,  by  special  arrangement, 
and  countless  baser  newspapers  ;  afterwards  to  be  bom 
again,  like  a  second  Peleus,  in  the  buckram  and  large  paper  of 
the  higher  grove  of  the  birds  of  song. 

The  utterer  of  these  winged  words,  whose  destiny  it  was 
to  cleave  the  airs  of  our  time  with  fragrance,  having  con- 
cluded this  important  contribution  to  the  heritage  of  man, 
was  now  engaged  in  writing  a  short  essay,  ycleped  An  In- 
quiry into  the  Decay  of  Feeling.  Its  avowed  purpose  was 
to  keep  a  light  burning  in  these  dark  days  of  Brutality  and 
Mammon.  The  literary  ideal  it  set  before  itself  was  to 
mingle  the  culture  of  Old  Greece  with  the  human  sim- 
plicity of  the  New  Testament.  It  had  already  achieved 
the  feat  of  exciting  a  substantial  cheque  on  account  from 
the  syndicate  which  had  purchased  the  serial  rights  beiore  a 
line  had  been  written. 

Beside  the  elbow  of  the  gifted  lady  was  a  feminine  peri- 
odical written  exclusively  by  Peeresses  for  the  perusal  of 
Ladies  who  had  been  presented  at  Court,  and  Gentlewomen 
of  the  Upper  Middle  Classes.  On  the  cover  was  the  picture 
of  a  Crowned  Head  in  colours.  The  Crown  had  been  re- 
produced with  a  fidelity  never  attempted  before.  By  a 
triumph  of  lithography,  every  stone  in  it  received  its  value, 
and  shone  with  the  greatest  authenticity.  A  free  copy  of 
the  magazine  had  been  graciously  accepted  by  the  Crowned 
Head  in  question.  And  so  lavish  were  its  proprietors  in 
the  lures  with  which  they  ravished  the  eyes  of  the  public, 
that,  as  if  this  fact  was  not  enough  in  itself  to  exhaust  the 
first  edition  on  the  day  of  publication,  there  was  displayed 
on  the  top  of  the  cover,  in  a  type  sufficiently  bold  to  cause 
the  hesitating  purchaser  instantly  to  resolve  her  doubts, 
the  legend  :  "  The  Lady  Bosket  at  Home,  by  One  who 
Knows  Her,  page  340." 

A  reference  to  the  page  in  question  set  forth,  under  the 
general  title  of  "  Illustrated  Interview  No  12,"  many  sur- 
prising and  memorable  details  of  the  home  life  of  the  writer 
of  Poses  in  the  Opaque.  Not  only  was  she  the  first  poetess 
and  authoress  of  her  time  from  the  point  of  view  of  an 

447 


BROKE   OF   COVENDEN 

unimpeachable  distinction,  but  it  was  also  her  pri\41e.cfe 
to  sit  in  the  peeresses'  Gallery  of  the  House  of  Lords.  To 
be  sure,  there  had  been  others,  but,  incredible  as  it  might 
appear,  even  wearers  of  the  strawberry  leaf  were  not  en- 
dowed so  unmistakably  with  the  authentic  thrill  as  the 
Lady  Bosket.  The  husband  of  the  gifted  lady,  said  our 
enthusiastic  periodical,  was  also  a  gentleman  of  exemplary 
life  and  the  highest  culture,  widely  known  and  deeply 
respected,  even  by  Royalty  Itself,  a  generous  patron  of  the 
Turf,  a  member  of  the  Jockey  Club,  and  a  popular  and  ac- 
comphshed  Master  of  Hounds. 

It  appeared  that  in  the  singularly  beautiful  home-life 
of  this  great  and  good  lady  her  humility  was  in  a  nice  pro- 
portion to  her  gifts.  Her  tastes  were  as  simple  as  they  were 
refined.  She  had  a  predilection  for  blue  china  and  black 
letter,  white  muslin  and  green  tea.  It  was  a  popular  fallacy 
to  suppose  that  that  exquisite  utterance,  "  Home  is  the 
woman's  sphere,"  was  out  of  the  Poses,  in  the  same  way 
that  it  was  to  suppose  that  "  God  tempers  the  wind  to  the 
shorn  lamb  "  was  out  of  the  Bible  ;  but  it  belonged  to  her 
in  a  higher  and  more  special  sense,  because  of  the  serene 
and  unfailing  manner  in  which  she  sustained  the  domestic 
character.  She  had  made  it  her  own.  The  sacredness 
of  the  home  was  so  immune  in  her  keeping,  that  in  the  time 
to  come  the  beautiful  phrase  quoted  above  must  become 
irrevocably  identified  with  her  name.  It  was  the  very 
marrow  of  her  writings,  the  true  inwardness  of  her  teach- 
ing. It  was  the  sacred  fount,  the  well-spring,  whence 
gushed  the  pure  solace  of  many  a  humble  hearth. 

As  befitted  the  transcendent  genius  of  one  "  who  had 
become  a  classic  in  her  own  life-time" — the  phrase  is  that 
of  one  of  the  weekly  journals  of  critical  and  literary  opinion 
whose  privilege  it  was  to  extol  her  works — the  definitive 
edition  of  the  collected  writings  of  Emma,  Lady  Bosket, 
the  Hipsley  edition  of  the  publishers'  announcements, 
stood  on  the  side  table  in  twelve  majestic  tomes.  On  the 
virgin  front  of  each  was  stamped  a  monogram  and  crest. 
Withm  was  a  full-length  photogravure  of  the  gifted  lady, 
in  the  coronet  and  ermine  robe  worn  by  peeresses  on  the 
occasions  of  an  organized  display.  Each  volume  was  further 
equipped  with  an  introduction  from  the  pen  of  a  purveyor 

448 


THE    LADY    BOSKET   AT    HOME 

of  prefaces  to  the  new  editions  of  the  classic  authors.  There 
was  also  an  additional  volume  uniform  with  the  above. 
An  Appreciation,  by  a  foremost  person  of  the  other  sex. 
This  edition  in  large  paper  was  limited  to  two  hundred 
and  fifty  copies,  each  of  which  bore  the  autograph  of  the 
authoress  ;  and  it  was  understood  that  when  that  number 
had  been  subscribed,  the  type  would  be  distributed.  Beside 
them  was  laid  reverently  the  Standard  newspaper  of  that 
day. 

Lady  Bosket  had  exchanged  the  glasses  of  public  life, 
for  the  gold  pince-nez  of  the  study.  Upon  the  appearance 
of  our  friend  she  resolutely  rounded  the  period  on  which 
she  was  engaged,  and  then  swung  round  audibly  in  her 
revolving  chair  to  confront  him. 

"  Be  so  good  as  to  leave  us,  Mottrom,"  she  said  in  her 
most  imperious  key. 

The  thirteenth  daughter  of  a  country  clergyman  who  had 
been  manipulating  the  typewriter  carried  the  machine  and 
Love  Eclectic  :  a  Sonnet  Cycle  into  an  adjoining  room.  She 
was  paid  by  the  hour  ;  and  neither  her  loft^'  ideal  of  dih- 
gence,  nor  that  of  her  employer  permitted  her  to  waste  a 
moment  of  her  time.  When  our  friend  had  closed  the  door 
upon  her,  Lady  Bosket  glared  upon  him  stonily  through  her 
pince-nez.  Less  accustomed  to  their  use  on  active  service, 
she  then  discarded  them  in  favour  of  the  more  familiar 
weapon. 

"  So  you  have  condescended  to  come." 

"  Oh  yes,"  said  our  friend,  affecting  a  meek  and  uneasy 
lightness  of  tone. 

"  Have  you  any  objection  to  informing  me  where  you 
have  been  during  the  past  fortnight  ?  " 

"  Town." 

"  That  is  a  lie,  Charles." 

The  delicately  cut  nostril  quivered.  The  whirr  of  in- 
tellectual feathers  could  be  faintly  heard. 

"  Beg  pardon,"  said  our  friend  humbly. 

The  uncompromising  statement  was  repeated  incisively. 

"  I  knew  you'd  say  that,"  he  said,  more  humbly  than 
ever.     "  But  it  is  God's  truth." 

"  I  must  ask  you,  Charles,  not  to  indulge  in  a  profane 
vehemence.     For  the  third  time  I  say  it  is  a  lie.     You 

449  FF 


BROKE    OF    COVENDEN 

have  not  slept  once  at  Grosvenor  Street  during  the  last 
fortnight." 

"  No,  I  have  been  sta5dn*  at  an  hotel." 

"  Wha-a-a-t !  "  The  voice  of  Lady  Bosket  ascended 
to  a  scream.  "  You  have  the  effrontery  to  tell  me  that 
to  my  face.  What  do  you  mean  by  staying  at  an  hotel 
when  there  is  your  own  house  to  go  to  ?  There  is  only  one 
construction  to  be  placed  on  such  an  act ;  and,  Charles, 
knowing  you  as  I  do,  I  do  not  hesitate  to  place  it  upon 
it." 

Our  friend  was  dumb  before  her  splendid  scorn  of  him. 
The  silver  hair  shook  about  the  intellectual  temples.  The 
high  voice  rose  higher,  to  a  wail  "  like  the  winds  of  March 
among  the  forest  trees  "  {Love  Eclectic  XIX). 

"  Thoroughly  debased  and  abandoned  as  you  are,"  said 
Lady  Bosket,  stimulated  to  superior  flights  by  the  inoffen- 
siveness  of  this  wretched  groveller,  "  such  a  behaviour 
cannot  have  an  iota  of  effect  upon  your  reputation  or  your 
character.  But  with  me,  I  thank  Heaven,  it  is  not  so.  It 
matters  very  grievously  to  me.  In  justice  to  many  thou- 
sands of  my  fellow-countrymen  and  fellow-countrywomen, 
it  behoves  me  to  be  jealous  of  the  name  I  bear.  I  must 
be  watchful,  Charles,  that  it  shall  not  be  tarnished  by  the 
breath  of  suspicion.  Do  you  suppose  that  the  work  to 
which  I  have  dedicated  my  life  :  the  leavening  of  the  lives 
of  the  people  of  this  land,  and  several  others,  the  conduct 
of  them  through  the  slough  of  gross  and  sensual  darkness 
along  the  paths  of  culture  into  the  blaze  and  the  ultimate 
glory  of  light — do  you  suppose,  Charles,  that  such  aims  as 
these  are  to  be  prejudiced  and  retarded,  and  even  rendered 
impotent,  by  the  irresponsible  acts  of  the  coarse  ruffian  who 
bears  my  name  ?  " 

Lord  Bosket  kept  his  hands  in  his  pockets  throughout 
this  oration,  and  might  have  been  heard  to  be  whistling 
softly  to  himself  in  those  intervals  which  punctuated  each 
surpassing  period,  wherein  the  speaker  paused  to  take  a 
little  breath  to  enter  upon  the  next. 

"  You  are  wrong  for  once,"  he  said  dismally,  when  she 
had  rounded  the  last  one  successfully- 

The  cringing  posture  adopted  by  this  worm  among  nan- 
kind  imbued  the  poetess  with  a  more  heroic  fury. 

4;"0 


THE    LADY    BOSKET   AT   HOME 

"  I  am  wrong,  ?m  I  !  Well,  let  me  remind  you  that,  when 
you  were  last  from  home,  the  private  detective  it  is  my 
custom  to  employ  reported,  Charles,  that  on  three  occasions 
you  were  traced  to  the  house  of  an  actress  in  St.  John's 
Wood." 

"  I  only  went  to  take  her  a  bunch  of  roses,  and  drink  a 
cup  of  tea.     No  harm  in  that." 

"  Man,  do  not  have  the  effrontery  to  defend  yourself. 
Your  very  existence  is  an  offence.  The  only  excuse  that  I 
have  allowed  myself  for  tolerating  it  so  long  has  been  the 
hope,  the  slender  hope,  that  force  of  example  would  bring 
about  your  reform.  But  now  I  see  more  clearly  than  ever 
that  you  are  a  lost  soul.  I  lose  heart,  Charles,  I  lose  heart. 
A  very  little  more,  Charles,  and,  cost  what  it  may  to  wash 
our  soiled  linen  in  public,  I  shall  obtain  peace  of  mind  at 
the  price  of  self-respect  and  proceed  to  do  so." 

"  How  much  more  ? "  Our  friend's  eagerness  was 
pathetic. 

"  I  do  not  choose  to  tell  you,"  said  his  lady,  nipping  in 
the  bud  the  tender,  pious  hope.  "  I  am  aware  that  in  the 
extreme  condition  into  which  your  courses  have  led  you, 
the  withdrawal  of  any  higher  influence  would  be  hailed  as  a 
relief.  But  do  not  flatter  yourself  unduly.  I  do  not 
propose  as  yet  to  abandon  you  to  the  mire.  You  are  an 
offence,  Charles,  you  nauseate ;  but  I  will  continue  to 
suffer  even  physical  repulsion  for  the  sake  of  your  eternal 
soul." 

To-day  the  gifted  lady  felt  herself  to  be  in  fine  form. 
She  had  at  least  two  pretexts  on  which  she  could  exercise 
the  highest  functions  of  her  talent.  It  was  not  always  she 
had  one.  But  to-day  there  was  no  need  to  make  bricks 
without  straw  ;  the  prodigality  of  her  grievances  was  a 
little  intoxicating. 

In  the  meantime,  our  friend  sighed.  He  had  ceased  to 
marvel  at  his  own  patience  long  ago.  He  had  come  to 
acquiesce  in  it  as  the  hypochondriac  acquiesces  in  his 
incurable  disease. 

"  This,  however,  is  not  the  matter  I  wished  to  discuss," 
said  our  agreeable  woman  of  genius,  gathering  her  forces 
for  a  still  happier  excursion.  For,  after  all,  that  particular 
theme  was  too  stale,  too  outworn  to  afford  any  pleasure, 

451 


BROKE   OF   COVENDEN 

beyond  the  opportunity  it  provided  to  display  her  technique, 
rather  in  the  fashion  that  your  poet  submits  to  the 
cumbersome  restrictions  of  rhyme.  But  the  one  she  was 
now  approaching  was  so  novel  that  it  had  been  purposely 
withheld  that  she  might  indulge  in  an  anticipation  of  the 
delights  it  would  afford. 

"  Charles,  I  must  ask  you  to  be  good  enough  to  read  this. 
Had  I  not  been  so  busy  with  my  important  work  I  should 
have  felt  it  my  duty  to  see  Jane  and  Edmund  personally. 
Indeed,  before  luncheon  I  sent  for  Jane,  but  at  present 
she  has  not  thought  fit  to  come.  Still,  I  am  inclined  to 
believe  the  whole  thing  is  a  horrible  mistake.  A  painful 
experience  teaches  one  that  compositors  are  so  careless ; 
although,  to  be  sure,  the  Standard  is  usually  so  very 
correct." 

As  she  spoke,  Lady  Bosket  picked  up  that  pillar  of  the 
Constitution  reclining  cheek  by  jowl  with  the  Hipsley 
edition  of  her  works.  She  placed  her  finger  on  an  announce- 
ment of  marriage  on  the  front  page,  and  ordered  her 
husband  to  peruse  it.  He  read  :  "  Porter — Broke.  On 
the  i6th  inst.,  at  St.  Remigius',  South  Kensington,  by  the 
Rev.  Canon  J.  G.  Pryse-Johnson,  M.A.,  Vicar,  Alfred,  eldest 
son  of  Joseph  Porter,  Cuttisham,  Parks,  to  Delia  Mary, 
youngest  daughter  of  E.  W.  A.  C.  B.  Broke,  Esq.,  J. P.,  D.L., 
3  Broke  Street,  St.  James's,  S.W.  ;  and  Covenden,  Cuttis- 
ham, Parks. 

Lady  Bosket  scrutinised  eagerly  the  face  of  our  friend 
while  he  read  this  literary  achievement  with  something 
of  the  indescribable  feelings  of  an  author  who  for  the  first 
time  sees  himself  in  the  fierce  glamour  of  print. 

"  It  is  impossible,"  she  said,  "  It  cannot  be  true,  and 
yet  it  is  alarmingly  circumstantial.  And  the  Standard  is 
so  correct  as  a  rule.  I  must  write  to  the  editor,  and  make 
him  apologise.  If  any  one  has  put  a  vulgar  hoax  upon  the 
Standard,  I  am  sure  it  will  do  its  utmost  to  bring  the 
perpetrator  to  justice." 

"  It  don't  look  so  bad  in  print  after  all,"  said  the  author 
with  a  fine  oblivion  of  everything  but  the  vanity  insepar- 
able from  his  condition.  "  The  Vicar  and  I  fixed  up 
that  little  account  ourselves,  and  it  will  be  in  all  the  London 
papers  this  mornin'.     The  Vicar  wanted  to  put  in  niece  of 

452 


THE    LADY    BOSKET   AT   HOME 

me  and  you — these  parson  fellers  are  tremendous  sticklers 
for  handles  and  that  sort  of  rot — but  I  said  no.  It  would 
not  be  fair  to  the  little  gell  to  have  her  saddled  with  an 
uncle  like  me  in  a  public  newspaper.  Might  go  against 
her  future.  And  I  happen  to  know,  missis,  that  neither 
of  em'  was  very  keen  on  you.  But  still,  that  account  looks 
very  well.  And  I  see  that  they  have  spelt  the  "  Pryse  " 
right ;  the  poor  Vicar  was  fairly  tremblin'  that  they  would 
spell  it  "  p-r-i-c-e." 

At  this  point  the  joint-author  was  stopped  imperiously, 
by  the  high  priestess  of  his  craft. 

"  Stop,  Charles  !  What  talk  is  this  ?  What  do  you  mean  ? 
I  do  not  believe  you  are  sober,  Charles  ?  " 

"  Sober  as  a  judge,"  said  Lord  Bosket  earnestly.  "  I 
know  what  I'm  sayin'.  I  thought  it  best  to  do  the  thing 
accordin'  to  Cocker  or  not  at  all.  Now,  honour  bright, 
missis,  as  a  judge  of  literature,  don't  you  think  that  that 
little  account  looks  very  well  in  print  ?  " 

"  If  you  are  not  drunk,  Charles,  you  must  be  mad.  What 
does  it  all  mean  ?  Will  you  have  the  goodness  to  explain  ?  " 

Our  friend  was  not  permitted  to  proceed  very  far  in  his 
remarkable,  but  not  particularly  lucid  statement,  before 
he  was  stopped  again. 

"  Will  you  have  the  goodness  to  speak  slowly  and  dis- 
tinctly, Charles  ?  And  have  the  goodness  to  employ  as 
little  licence  in  your  speech  as  possible.  A  little  more 
chastity  and  purity  of  expression  one  would  welcome  as  an 
aid  to  one's  intelligence.  As  1  have  before  had  occasion  to 
remind  you,  the  word  '  filly  '  is  intended  to  signify  a  young 
female  horse,  not  a  young  female  human  being.  Your 
low  stable  phraseology  is  not  only  disagreeable,  it  is  offen- 
sive." 

Lord  Bosket  continued  his  narration  as  best  he  could 
under  these  hampering  restrictions.  Long  before  the  end 
of  it  Lady  Bosket  was  taken  aback  too  completely  to  be 
able  to  impose  any  further  checks  upon  his  mode  of  ex- 
pression. 

"It  is  too  much,"  she  cried.  "  One's  reason  staggers. 
What  was  everybody  about  ?  WTiat  were  her  parents 
about  ?  And  you,  Charles  ?  And  the  child  herself  ?  And 
what  were  the  police  doing  ?     Besides,  no  man  in  his  senses 

453 


BROKE    OF   COVENDEN 

would  ever  dare.    The  man  must  be  mad.     You  all  must 
be  mad  !     No  ;  I  will  not,  I  cannot  believe  it." 

She  ended  on  a  sob  of  angry  pain,  which  gave  her  so  much 
pleasure  that  it  might  have  been  real.  Our  friend,  who 
was  perhaps  the  tenderest-hearted  man  in  the  world — at 
least  those  who  knew  him  best  were  firm  in  that  belief — 
was  touched  by  such  a  poignant  distress.  He  had  the 
intrepidity  to  seek  to  lessen  it. 

"  No  need  to  take  on  about  it,  missis.  It's  all  for  the 
best,  I'm  certain.  Edmund  said  he  wouldn't  have  her 
back  ;  and  she  said  she  wouldn't  go  back,  and  meant  it  too. 
She  might  ha'  gone  much  farther  and  fared  a  damn  sight 
worse.  Lucky  little  filly  to  get  a  feller  like  that ;  though, 
mind  you,  he's  lucky  too.     She's  a  fine  little  gell." 

"Charles, how  dare  you!  Have  you  the  effrontery  to 
stand  there  and  tell  me  you  are  proud  of  your  work  ?  " 

"  I  ain't  ashamed  of  it,  missis,"  said  our  friend  in  a 
meek  voice.  "  I  am  damned  if  I  am.  If  the  same  thing 
happened  to-morrow  I  should  do  it  again.  If  ever  two 
beggars  were  made  for  one  another  in  this  world  those 
were  the  two." 

"  Fob  !  you  disgust  me.  Your  habits  have  utterly 
destroyed  any  little  sense  of  decency  you  may  have  once 
possessed.  Can  you  be  aware  that  this  man — I  will  not 
soil  my  lips  with  his  name — is  from  behind  the  counter  of 
a  bookseller's  shop  in  Cuttisham." 

"  Devilish  lucky  counter  to  keep  a  man  like  that  behind 
it,  as  I  said  to  Jane."  For  the  first  time  in  this  interview 
our  friend  evinced  a  spark  of  spirit.  Attacks  on  his  personal 
character  he  had  acquired  the  habit  of  accepting  as  a 
matter  of  course,  as  in  accordance  with  his  merit ;  but  in 
the  cause  of  a  second  person,  of  one  who  had  won  his  confi- 
dence, he  could  be  valiant.  "  Missis,  what  I  say  is  this, 
if  they  have  got  any  more  of  that  sort  hidin'  behind  the 
counters  in  the  Cuttisham  shops,  the  sooner  they  come  from 
behind  em'  the  better.  The  country  will  be  none  the 
worse  for  that  sort.  I'd  back  that  feller  to  any  amount. 
If  I'd  got  a  little  filly  of  my  own,  which  I  haven't  and 
never  shall  have,  I'd  trust  that  feller  with  her." 

"  Man,  you  forget  yourself  !  " 

"  Wish  I  could,"  said  the  man  drearily. 

454 


THE    LADY    BOSKET   AT   HOME 

The  voice  of  our  heroic  lady  had  risen  higher  and  higher 
at  these  audacious  speeches.  Whenever  her  poor  worm  of 
a  husband  showed  a  tendency  to  stand  up  for  others,  he  was 
acting  on  a  principle  that  she  did  not  understand.  For 
him  to  exhibit  it  at  this  of  all  seasons  was  maddening. 
Again  and  again  could  her  plumage  be  heard  to  whirr  like 
that  of  a  covey  of  startled  partridges.  The  patrician 
features  quivered,  and  were  seen  to  grow  distorted  into 
shapes  that  almost  as  by  a  miracle  remained  outside  the 
border-line  of  the  plebeian.  The  forehead,  that  citadel  of 
intellectual  nobility,  lost  its  serene  appearance,  but  yet 
it  was  not  sufficiently  twisted  to  crack  the  enamel  that 
covered  it.  The  regal  nose  was  uptossed  and  snuffed  the  air, 
but  not  in  sufficient  quantities  to  provoke  an  undignified 
desire  to  sneeze.  Her  glasses  almost  forgot  to  be  self- 
conscious,  and  shook  in  her  hand  in  a  sublime  agitation, 
which  yet  contrived  to  enable  her  to  round  her  periods 
with  strenuous  magniloquence  as  became  the  author  of  the 
"  Poses." 

"He  is  out  of  a  bookseller's  shop  in  Cuttisham,"  she 
shrieked.  "  And  you  not  only  countenance  this  immoral 
marriage,  but  you  aid,  you  abet,  you  defend  it.  Have  you 
no  sense  of  propriety,  of  decency,  of  the  fitness  of  things  ? 
Have  you  no  fragment  left  of  your  self-respect.  Answer 
me,  man.     Were  you  drunk  when  you  did  it  ?  " 

"  No,"  said  the  man  quietly. 

"  I  suppose  there  is  a  law  in  the  land  by  which  it  can  be 
set  aside,  and  the  man  can  be  imprisoned  with  hard  labour. 
\^Tiat  are  Jane  and  Edmund  doing  ?  Answer  me  that. 
Have  they  communicated  with  the  police  ?  " 

"  No  ;  but  they  damn  near  had  to.  H I  hadn't  happened 
to  meet  old  Pearce  that  afternoon,  they'd  ha'  been  wanted 
at  the  mortuary  to  identify  the  body  of  a  little  gell." 

"  Would  that  they  had  been,  rather  than  she  should  have 
cast  this  indelible  disgrace  upon  her  name." 

"  If  I  were  you,  missis,  I  wouldn't  let  anybody  hear  me 
say  that." 

"  Don't  dare  to  talk  to  me,  man.  What  is  Edmund 
doing  ?  " 

"  If  you  read  the  letter  he  wrote  to  me  when  she  went 
away,  you  wouldn't  ask.     He  washed  his  hands  of  her  at 

455 


BROKE    OF    COVENDEN 

the  start.     He  behaved  hke  the  swine  that  he  can  be,  did 

Edmund,  1  don't  mind  tellin'  you." 

"  A  very  right  and  proper  course  for  Edmund  to  take. 
He  at  least  appears  not  quite  to  have  lost  his  head.  I  shall 
make  it  my  duty  to  find  a  law  in  the  land  to  punish  them 
both.  The  incredible  effrontery  of  a  man  I  chose  myself, 
a  man  who  owed  nearly  everything  to  my  interest,  that  he 
should  turn  round  and  bite  the  hand  that  fostered  him  ! 
I  know  not  whether  the  more  to  deplore  his  wickedness  or 
his  black  ingratitude." 

Lord  Bosket  gave  his  shoulders  a  whimsical  shrug. 

"  The  man  must  be  lost  to  all  sense  of  shame.  And-as. 
for  that  child,  she  is  so  abandoned  that  I  have  no  words  in 
which  to  express  what  I  think  of  her.  It  is  intolerable, 
it  is  a  gross  outrage  against  our  higher  human  instincts 
that  one  of  her  years  should  wantonly  bring  degradation 
on  herself  and  worse  than  degradation  on  her  family." 

At  this  point  Lord  Bosket  actually  had  the  temerity  to 
shake  his  head,  as  though  he  ventured  to  dissent  from  the 
views  set  forth  with  so  much  power  and  finish.  He  took 
confidence  from  the  fact  that  these  great  guns  were  no 
longer  trained  against  himself. 

"  Here,  steady  on,"  he  suddenly  interjected  into  the 
middle  of  a  particularly  choice  tirade.  In  a  flash  was  he 
turned  upon  and  rent. 

"  You  deny  me  the  right  to  express  my  opinion,  Charles," 
she  cried,  "  like  the  wind  in  the  gables  groaning  "  {Love 
Eclectic  XXXV).  "  But  I  will  express  it.  Do  you  expect 
me  to  be  browbeaten  by  such  a  coarse  bully  as  you  ?  I 
despise  you  for  what  you  are.  The  child  is  my  niece, 
would  that  she  were  not,  and  whatever  I  choose  to  think 
of  her  I  will  say.  If  the  inadequacy  of  your  sense  of  shame 
permits  you  deliberately  to  help  her  on  her  downward  path, 
do  you  suppose  I  will  condone  her  or  you  ?  I  might  have 
been  aware  that  the  moment  she  fell  into  your  clutches  she 
would  be  ruined." 

"  Steady  on,"  said  Lord  Bosket. 

An  odd  look  had  come  in  him  suddenly. 

"Do  you  suppose,  Charles,  that  so  coarse  a  ruffian  as 
yourself  shall  make  me  insensible  to  the  conduct  of  one 
so  shameless  and  abandoned  ?  " 

456 


THE    LADY    BOSKET   AT   HOME 

"Steady  on,  missis,"  said  our  friend.  "Stick  to  me; 
my  back's  broad  ;  and  I  daresay  I  deserve  all  I  get.  But 
leave  that  little  gell  alone,  d'ye  hear,  JNobody's  goin'  to 
say  a  word  against  that  little  filly  before  me." 

"Oh,  indeed,  Charles.  I  shall  say  exactly  what  I  choose 
of  the  little  filly,  as  you  term  her  so  elegantly."  The 
sagacious  lady  saw  where  the  shoe  pinched.  She  wanted 
to  inflict  pain  ;  and  in  the  pleasure  of  the  discovery  of  the 
vulnerable  heel  of  this  besotted  Achilles,  against  whom  her 
shafts  were  directed  in  vain  as  a  rule,  she  was  inclined  to 
exult.  She  had  found  a  sure  means  at  last  of  gratifying 
her  appetite. 

In  the  meantime  the  uneasiness  of  our  friend's  air  and 
manner  was  become  more  visible.  His  customary  stolid, 
dogged,  querulous  look  was  giving  way  to  something  else. 
His  face  approximated  a  shade  nearer  to  the  colour  of  the 
tomato,  if  such  a  feat  in  aestheticism  were  possible.  Some- 
thing remarkable  was  showing  in  his  furtive  and  uneasy 
eye.  He  began  to  waddle  up  and  down  the  carpet  in  his 
agitation,  a  course  that  the  very  keenest  of  his  lady's 
barbs  had  failed  to  incite  him  to  adopt  before.  Nor  was 
she  slow  to  observe  this  salutary  effect  upon  her  brutalised 
and  dull-witted  sot  of  a  husband.  It  induced  her  to 
spread  her  pinions  wider  in  the  rapt  empyrean.  She  went 
to  higher  flights. 

Suddenly  our  friend  stopped  in  his  eccentric  waddle, 
and  bent  his  head  towards  her  with  a  humble,  perplexed 
attention. 

"  What  was  that  you  said,  missis  ?  I  didn't  quite 
catch  it." 

The  authoress  repeated  the  phrase  syllable  by  syllable 
with  blistering  unction. 

There  was  a  pause  while  our  friend  strove  to  instil  its 
meaning  into  his  torpid  understanding.  He  was  then 
seen  to  make  a  great  effort  to  pull  himself  together.  Still 
exhibiting  many  tokens  of  an  intense  mental  struggle, 
our  friend  made  a  careful  selection  of  his  words,  and  pro- 
ceeded to  utter  them  with  a  precision  that  one  would 
hardly  have  given  him  the  credit  of  being  able  to  em- 
ploy. 

"  Look  you   here,  my  good  woman,"  he  said,  and  his 
457 


BROKE    OF    COVENDEN 

fingers  and  face  were  twitching  violently.  "  Neither  you 
nor  anybody  else  is  goin'  to  speak  of  that  little  gell  like 
that  before  me.  You  mark  it,  my  good  woman ;  I'm 
not  goin'  to  stand  it,  d'ye  see  ?  " 

"  So  you  choose  to  be  impertinent,  Charles,"  said  the 
intrepid  lady,  not  scenting  the  danger  that  she  ran.  "  This 
is  a  new  development.  You  coarse  bully  and  ruffian,  I 
shall  speak  of  her  in  what  terms  I  choose." 

"  Oh,  you  will !  "  said  our  friend,  in  a  gloomy  and  pensive 
manner,  which  yet  left  no  margin  for  misconstruction. 
"  Now,  missis,  look  you  here,  if  you  ain't  civil  I  shall  have 
to  smack  you." 

Lady  Bosket  paused  with  open  mouth  to  gasp  for  breath. 
And  well  she  might.  Such  a  blasphemous  speech  had 
frozen  the  blood  in  those  intellectual  veins.  The  new 
darts  on  her  tongue  refused  to  be  shot  forth.  The 
degraded  worm  she  called  husband  was  here  in  a  new  role 
indeed.  Never  before  had  she  seen  him  look  thus.  And 
as  for  hearing  him  speak  in  that  way,  never,  never  had 
those  chaste  ears  been  so  defiled.  The  man  must  be  drink- 
ing himself  mad.  The  flaccid,  meek  thing,  whose  name 
she  had  borne  all  these  years,  on  whose  devoted  person 
she  had  been  able  to  wreak  her  talents  to  her  heart's  con- 
tent, because  of  the  immunity  conferred  by  his  sheeplike 
character,  had,  for  the  first  time,  given  place  to  the  more 
hideous  guise  in  which  her  romantic  fancy  had  delighted 
to  clothe  him  that  her  heroic  assaults  might  have  a  reason 
to  be. 

Often  enough  she  had  called  him  a  wolf,  when  in  her 
heart  she  had  known  him  to  be  only  a  lamb.  If  for  a 
moment  she  had  thought  he  really  might  be  a  wolf,  she 
would  have  known  better  than  to  make  so  free  with  the 
opprobrious  name.  Had  there  seemed  a  remote  chance 
of  being  torn  by  such  a  terrible  animal  nothing  would  have 
induced  her  to  incur  the  risk.  Physical  courage  and  a 
high  intellectual  development  do  not  always  run  in  double 
harness.  No  sooner  was  it  borne  in  upon  this  lady  of  a 
hyper-eminent  culture  that  the  brute  and  the  ruffian 
meant  what  he  said  than  her  flag  went  down. 

It  was  only  for  an  instant,  however,  in  the  first  shock 
of  disillusion.     Habit  is  as  powerful  as  nature.     So  long 

458 


THE   LADY    BOSKET   AT   HOME 

had  she  been  accustomed  to  wield  the  rod  of  an  unquestioned 
ascendancy  over  him,  that  at  once  to  acquiesce  in  this 
new  order  of  things  was  impossible.  The  beast  might 
bluster  ;  but  it  was  not  reasonable  to  suppose  that  such  a 
sheep  could  stand  revealed  after  all  these  years  as  anything 
more  fierce.  He  was  no  wolf  however,  he  might  bark  and 
growl  and  masquerade  in  grey  fur.  She  would  soon  tear 
that  inane  garment  off  him  and  expose  the  childish 
deception.     It  was  only  Charles. 

With  the  accession  of  this  second  and  more  comfortable 
thought,  our  gifted  lady  raised  her  glasses  slowly  and 
majestically  and  went  with  a  splendid  deliberation  to 
a  doom  that  was  invested  with  something  of  pathos  by 
the  complete  unconsciousness  in  which  she  was  clad  as  she 
embraced  it. 

"  Charles,  I  regret  to  find  that  you  are  under  the  influ- 
ence of  drink.  But  you  are  not  to  suppose  that  your 
Hooliganism  wUl  divorce  me  from  a  sense  of  my  duty  in 
this  case.  Every  word  I  have  uttered  in  regard  to  that 
abandoned  creature  I  am  prepared  to  re-affirm.  She  is 
as  great  a  disgrace  to  her  sex  as  you  are  to  yours." 

"  Very  good,"  said  our  friend,  "  now  you  get  a  damned 
good  hidin'." 

Before  the  astounded  lady  could  realise  what  was  taking 
place,  the  sheep  under  the  wolfskin  had  made  a  grab  at 
her  desk,  and  seized  the  manuscript  of  the  Inquiry  into 
the  Decay  of  Feeling,  had  torn  it  into  a  hundred  pieces 
and  distributed  them  all  over  the  carpet.  His  next  act 
was  to  turn  to  the  side  table,  and  at  one  fell  swoop  to 
knock  off  the  entire  Hipsley  Edition  of  her  Collected  Works. 
For  quite  a  minute  he  played  football  with  these  chaste 
volumes  about  a  room  that  was  overburdened  with  rare 
articles  of  furniture.  The  volume  containing  the  imperish- 
able "  Poses "  themselves  he  kicked  through  the  very 
centre  of  a  magnificent  mirror  in  occupation  of  the  mantel- 
piece, whereon  it  fell  from  its  full  height  and  was  dashed 
in  a  thousand  fragments  on  the  tiles  of  the  hearth.  Many 
articles  of  priceless  old  china,  Sevres  vases,  and  wonderful 
cameos  came  to  destruction  on  those  same  relentless  tiles. 
He  then  turned  his  attention  to  an  old  cabinet,  beautiful 
and  rare,  that  stood  in  a  corner,  overturned  it  completely, 

459 


BROKE    OF    COVENDEN 

and  in  the  process  innumerable  knick-knacks,  souvenirs 
from  admirers  in  all  quarters  of  the  world,  and  many  ob- 
jects of  vertu  suffered  damage  of  an  irreparable  nature. 
Not  here,  however,  did  the  debacle  end.  The  sheep  under 
the  wolfskin  was  further  inflamed  by  the  sight  of  a  full- 
length  oil-painting  by  a  Royal  Academician  of  the  authoress 
of  the  "  Poses  "  in  a  coronet  and  robe,  which  hung  in  a 
massive  gilt  frame  on  the  wall  opposite  that  noble  ruined 
mirror,  wherein  the  subject  of  this  free  adaptation  of  her 
patrician  features  was  wont  to  gaze,  to  enjoy  the  pleasure 
of  contemplating  herself  from  the  several  points  of  view 
of  the  ideal  and  the  real  at  one  and  at  the  same  time.  This 
rococo  performance  was  plucked  from  its  place  of  honour 
and  hurled  with  a  reverberating  crash  through  the  middle 
of  a  stained  glass  window,  designed  by  a  second  alumnus 
of  Burlington  House,  into  the  conservatory  behind. 

The  sheep  under  the  wolfskin  then  turned  his  attention 
to  the  authoress  of  Poses  in  the  Opaque.  She  was  dis- 
covered to  be  cowering  in  a  corner  of  the  room,  trembling 
with  terror.  She  was  too  frightened  to  cry  out.  So  little 
was  she  fitted  by  nature  to  cope  with  crises  of  *his  kind, 
that  at  this  moment  she  could  neither  think,  act,  nor  utter 
any  sort  of  vocal  protest  whatever.  Her  glasses  had 
fallen  to  the  ground,  and  had  already  been  trampled  out  of 
recognition  under  the  hoofs  of  the  monster. 

"  Now  then,  missis,"  said  our  friend,  still  in  the 
gloomy  and  pensive  manner  in  which  he  had  wrecked  the 
room,     "  You've  got  to  have  it.     Come  out  o'  that." 

He  took  our  gifted  lady  by  the  hair  and  proceeded  to 
drag  her  out  of  her  refuge.  In  the  act  the  major  portion 
of  it,  in  the  form  of  a  toupee,  came  away  in  his  hand.  He 
then  administered  a  smack  with  his  open  palm,  not  on  the 
authentic  part,  but  on  one  side  of  the  head,  and  then  one 
on  the  other,  not  very  hard,  but  rather  in  the  pensive  and 
disinterested  manner  that  he  would  have  bestowed  a 
similar  correction  on  a  puppy  who  had  been  guilt}'  of  a 
misdemeanour. 

"  Damn  it,  missis,  you  deserve  a  lot  more  than  that," 
he  said,  thoughtfully,  after  this  discipline  had  been 
administered. 

Hut  as  the  humane  reader  will  not  need  to  be  told,  the 
460 


THE    LADY    BOSKET   AT    HOME 

cultivated  creature  suffered  intensely.  The  first  of  these 
rather  formal  and  perfunctory  strokes  shook  her  to  the 
centre  of  her  intellectual  being ;  at  the  second  she 
sank  to  her  knees  among  the  debris,  and  proceeded 
in  abject  terror  to  swoon  at  the  feet  of  her  lord. 

By  the  time  the  horrified  clergyman's  daughter  in  the 
next  room  had  summoned  the  necessary  degree  of  courage 
to  invade  the  riot,  it  was  an  extraordinary  scene  that  re 
warded  her  hardihood.  The  temple  of  the  Muses  had 
suffered  earthquake  and  eclipse :  but  that  was  not  the  most 
memorable  part  of  the  spectacle  provided  for  her.  The 
husband  of  "  the  most  distinguished  woman  of  our  time" 
was  seen  to  be  supporting  his  fainting  lady  on  his  knee. 
He  was  fondling  her  hands  and  addressing  terms  of  en- 
dearment to  her,  while  she,  poor  soul,  lay  in  his  arms 
panting,  and  sobbing,  and  clinging  to  them,  with  a  face 
dissolved  in  tears. 

"  Dry  your  eyes,  missis,"  he  was  saying  in  tender  accents. 
"  Be  a  good  old  missis  in  the  future,  and  it  sha'n't  happen 
to  you  any  miore.  You  are  not  hurt,  you  know  ;  I  hardly 
touched  you.  If  you  had  had  your  rights,  you  know,  you 
would  ha'  got  a  lot  more  than  that.  But  a  kiss  now,  missis, 
and  we  will  call  the  account  square.  Dry  your  eyes,  poor  old 
thing.  Miss  Mottrom,  ring  the  bell,  and  we  will  get  the 
poor  old  gell  a  cup  of  tea.     She's  a  bit  upset." 

"  N-n-no,"  moaned  the  tearful  lady.  "  D-do  not  ring 
Mottrom.  I — I  am  not  fit  to  be  seen  in  this  state.  N- 
nobody  must  know  of  what  has  happened.  It  would 
be  too  scandalous.     I — I  shall  be  recovered  presently." 

We  must  leave  the  tearful  lady  to  recover  by  degrees  in 
the  tender  and  affectionate  arms  of  her  lord,  who  in  the 
meantime  is  diligently  bathing  her  temples  in  eau  de 
cologne. 


461 


CHAPTER    XXXVIII 

In  which  Mr.  Breffit  the  Younger  puts  a 
Hyphen  to  his  Name 

IT  was  in  the  middle  of  August  that  the  arrangement 
was  made  by  which  Harriet  was  to  be  given  in  marriage 
to  John  Henry  Clapham  Raynes,  tenth  Duke  of  Wimbledon. 
Broke' s  opposition  was  instinctive  rather  than  reasonable, 
tacit  rather  than  expressed.  There  were  points  where 
expedience  merged  itself  into  duty.  The  match  could 
never  have  the  sanction  of  his  heart,  but  in  the  present 
state  of  his  affairs  it  might  contribute  in  a  substantial  sense 
to  their  well-being  as  a  family.  And  it  was  the  first  doc- 
trine he  held,  the  one  to  which  he  clung  with  a  tenacity 
that  made  it  sacred,  the  one  to  which  the  long  line  of  his 
name  had  clung  before  him,  that  each  individual  member 
of  the  clan  to  which  they  had  the  honour  to  belong  must 
sink  their  personal  interests,  their  private  desires  in  the 
common  weal  of  that  splendid  institution. 

In  a  sense  this  proposed  marriage  also  went  against 
the  humane  judgment  of  Mrs.  Broke.  But  necessity 
did  much  to  soften  her  scruples.  The  child  would 
be  provided  for  for  life,  in  a  sufficiently  handsome 
manner  ;  and  at  whatever  cost  to  the  child  herself, 
here  was  a  consideration  that  must  be  allowed  to  stand 
foremost.  They  were  all  going  to  beggary  together.  It 
would  be  little  less  than  a  crime  to  cast  away  any 
additional  chance  of  keej^ng  a  roof  over  their  heads.  In 
the  matter  of  young  Breffit  this  austere  practical  wisdom 

462 


MR.    BREFFIT   THE    YOUNGER 

made  her  almost  equally  insistent.  In  that  case,  however, 
Broke's  prejudices  were  not  to  be  overborne.  Even 
Expedience  was  powerless  before  them. 

Harriet  was  selected  after  the  arrangement  itself  had  been 
made.  The  duke  was  given  carte  blanche.  He  had  only 
five  to  choose  from,  it  was  true,  now  that  Delia  was  no  longer 
included  in  the  fold.  But  the  noble  suitor  evinced  no  bias 
in  favour  of  any  particular  one.  One  was  as  good  as 
another  in  his  impartial  view.  It  savoured  of  an  act  of 
supererogation  invidiously  to  select.  One  and  all  were 
equally  healthy,  equally  homely.  Was  it  not  almost  too 
much  to  ask  that  from  among  such  a  wealth  of  material 
he  should  make  up  his  mind  and  choose  for  himself  ?  In 
the  end,  finding  the  task  of  selection  to  be  beyond  his 
powers,  he  invoked  the  aid  of  the  president  of  their  des- 
tinies. 

"  My  dear  friend,"  he  asked  huskily,  "  which  would  you 
recommend  ?  They  all  appear  so  worthy,  but  I  cannot 
take  five,  can  I  ?  " 

"  Not  in  civilized  England,  my  dear  Harry.  Have  you 
not,  may  I  ask,  a  slight  predilection  in  favour  of  any  par- 
ticular one  ?  " 

"  No,  alas  !  " 

"  Surely  one  among  them  is  able  to  impose  her  person- 
ality upon  you  in  some  slight  peculiar  way." 

"  No,  indeed." 

"  How  extravagantly  unimpressionable,  my  poor  dear 
boy  I  Cannot  you  concede  something  to  the  feelings  of 
a  mother  ?  " 

"  They  are  all  so  much  alike,"  he  said  plaintively. 

"  Can  you  not  distinguish  between  their  hair,  or  their 
eyes,  or  their  height,  my  dear  Harry  ?  Surely  the  contour 
of  one  amongst  so  many  must  have  established  some 
slight  sense  of  urecedence  in  your  mind.  Shut  your  eyes, 
my  dear  boy,  and  try  to  summon  one." 

"  If  I  shut  my  eyes  they  do  not  come  at  all.  My  dear 
friend,  I  implore  you  to  make  a  suggestion.  The  first 
name  you  give  I  will  accept." 

Mrs.  Broke  laughed  smoothly. 

"  But  surely,  surely  the  suggestion  should  come  from 
you.     We  women,  you  know,  are  so  sentimental  in  these 

4651 


BROKE    OF   COVENDEN 

matters.  We  are  ever  seeking  to  pluck  the  dragon's  tooth 
of  sentiment  out  of  our  garden,  but  it  seems  hopeless  to 
destroy  the  horrid  crop  of  fetishes  that  has  been  borne 
upon  it.  Sex  is  a  strange  thing  ;  ours,  my  dear  Harry,  will 
insist  even  at  this  time  of  day  upon  investing  the  institution 
of  matrimony  with  a  certain  amount  of  emotion.  You  are 
acquainted  with  their  names.  Observe  the  propriet  cs  by 
uttering  one  yourself,  as  haphazard  as  you  please,  and  she 
is  yours." 

It  was  the  duke's  turn  to  laugh  now.  He  did,  with  a 
wheeziness  that  robbed  the  act  of  its  spontaneity.  But 
the  baffling  nature  of  the  matter  was  expressed  by  a  mild 
light  of  humour  in  his  face.  Still,  there  was  also  his  grand 
hereditary  anxiety  to  observe  the  proprieties. 

"  One  wants  to  do  the  right  thing,  you  know  ;  one  must 
always  do  the  right  thing,  musn't  one  ?  I  would  wish  to 
avoid  the  conviction  that  the  selection  is  arbitrary.  Surely, 
my  dear  friend,  as  their  mother,  you  can  establish  a  claim 
for  one  of  them,  by  suggesting  some  little  point  of  priority." 

"  In  the  matter  of  good  looks,  my  dear  Harry,  I  do  not 
think  there  is  a  pin  to  choose  between  them.  They  are 
all  equally  distinguished  by  their  absence.  If  we  were  at 
the  trouble  to  survey  the  area  of  their  noses  I  am  sure  they 
would  all  be  found  to  be  cf  equal  dimension.  In  the  colour 
of  their  eyes,  their  height,  the  hue  of  their  skins  they  do 
not  differ.  If  we  were  at  the  trouble  to  count  the  number 
of  hairs  that  adorn  their  heads,  I  do  not  doubt  that  they 
would  be  found  to  tally  to  a  unit.  There  are  their  ages, 
of  course.  Fortunately  they  were  not  all  born  on  the 
same  day." 

"  But  I  confess  it  does  not  seem  quite  the  right  thing  to 
make  that  distinction.  I  might  take  the  eldest,  or  I 
might  take  the  youngest,  but  is  not  that  just  the  con- 
tingency that  a  sensitive  person  like  myself  would  wish  to 
avoid  ?  I  would  like  to  find  a  more  adequate  reason  for 
imposing  captivity  upon  the  eldest  beyond  the  fact  chat 
she  was  the  first  to  enter  the  world.  I  should  take  comfort 
from  such  a  reason  if  it  could  be  found.  I  should  not  like 
to  feel  that  the  disabilities  of  the  first-born,  under  which 
I  labour  myself,  had  been  invested  at  my  hands  with  an 
additional  gravity." 

464 


MR.    BREFFIT    THE    YOUNGER 

"  Your  scruples  do  you  honour,  my  dear  Harry,  but  in 
this  case  I  confess  they  are  uncomfortable." 

"  I  feel  that  I  must  do  the  right  thing.  Ha  !  I  have  an 
expedient.  Suppose  we  place  the  names  of  the  sacred  five 
in  a  hat,  and  draw  out  one  ?  Their  chances  of  escape  will 
then  be  equal ;  and  our  choice  will  also  be  dignified,  as  it 
were,  with  the  official  sanction  of  Providence." 

"  Is  not  your  ingenuity  a  little  grotesque  ?  I  am  sure 
it  is  calculated  to  strike  a  death-blow  to  the  sentiment 
of  the  feminine  heart ;  but  I  am  afraid  I  can  suggest  no 
more  poetic  remedy." 

It  was  by  this  process  of  selection  that  Harriet  became 
the  favoured  njmiph. 

"  Ah — Harriet  is  her  name  I  see,"  said  the  noble  vale- 
tudinarian, unfolding  the  slip  of  paper  he  had  picked  out 
wearily — the  young-old  man  was  quite  worn  out  by  the 
mental  strain  involved  by  these  anxieties.  "  I  like  her 
name.  I  once  had  an  old  nurse  whose  name  was  Harriet, 
the  kindest  old  soul  I  ever  knew.  Why  did  I  not  think  of 
her?  She  would  have  resolved  at  once  our  sentimental 
difficulty." 

"  Fortunately  the  inspiration  does  not  come  too  late," 
said  Mrs.  Broke  with  her  mild  laugh.  "  Chance  having 
decreed  in  Harriet's  favour,  the  choice  can  still  have  the 
cachet  of  your  tender  regard  for  your  old  nurse.  The 
dear,  devoted  old  thing !  I  declare  I  have  fallen  in 
love  myself  with  her  fragrant  memory.  The  associa- 
tions clinging  about  her  name  must  be  ever  incomparably 
tender.  If  you  will  kindly  ring  the  bell,  Harry,  you 
shall  see  the  bride-elect." 

"  Not  to-day,  I  think,  if  you  please,"  said  Harry.  "  I 
fear  I  have  gone  through  too  much  already.  I  cannot 
stand  excitement  now." 

"I  would  like  the  child  to  make  your  acquaintance 
under  these  conditions,  my  dear  Harry,  if  you  do  not  mind. 
I  cannot  help  thinking  it  would  be  wise  for  her  to  see  you 
at  your  worst,  my  poor  dear  boy.  •  So  wonderfully  and 
fearfully  are  we  women  put  together,  that  I  believe  she 
would  be  the  more  sensible  of  your  apj^eal.  The  more 
fragile  the  flower  the  more  we  cherish  it.  I  confess,  Harry, 
that  it  is  against  my  preconceived  opinions  for  matrimony 

4^5  GG 


BROKE   OF   COVENDEN 

to  be  graced  at  the  altar  by  the  sacred  flame  of  love  ;  but  in 
the  case  of  your  nuptials,  my  poor  dear  boy,  I  am  prepared 
cheerfully  to  waive  them.  Indeed,  in  the  special  circum- 
stances I  am  woman  enough  to  hanker  after  something  of 
the  kind.  It  would  indeed  be  a  piquant  termination  to  a 
romantic  episode.  You  pull  the  name  of  your  duchess 
out  of  a  hat,  and  forthwith  she  prostrates  herself  to  worship 
you  for  yourself  alone.  And  again  it  is  the  way  of  our  sex. 
The  probabilities  are  that  had  you  laid  your  heart  and  for- 
tune at  her  feet  in  the  time-honoured  manner  of  Mr.  Mudie, 
she  would  probably  have  trampled  upon  both.  Really, 
my  poor  dear  boy,  as  you  sit  here  now  you  fulfil  my  ideas 
exactly  of  the  manner  in  which  you  ought  to  make  your 
debut  before  the  bride-elect.  You  are  so  interesting, 
that  surely  one  is  warranted  in  the  anticipation  of  charming 
developments  of  one  kind  or  another." 

Upon  this  excursus  the  bell  was  rung  and  Harriet  sent 
for.  She  presently  appeared,  perfectly  simple  and  child- 
ishly youthful  of  aspect,  with  a  glow  of  health  in  her 
cheeks. 

"  This  is  the  child,  Harry.  An  honest,  dutiful  creature, 
with  a  sympathetic  nature." 

"  Ha!  how  d'ye  do?"  said  her  prospective  husband, 
springing  to  his  feet,  and  offering  her  his  thin,  nervous  lath 
of  a  hand. 

Harriet  accepted  it  with  perfect  gravity.  In  a  few  bold 
and  pleasantly  incisive  strokes  Mrs.  Broke  outlined  the 
relation  in  which  so  recently  she  had  come  to  stand  towards 
the  gentleman  before  her.  She  accepted  this  information 
also  with  a  gravity  that  was  unabated.  Probably  a  faint 
blush  may  have  shown  itself  in  her,  because  the  thing  was 
so  sudden  ;  she  may  even  have  been  a  little  startled  ;  and 
the  large  eyes  she  directed  upon  the  noble  valetudinarian 
may  even  have  had  a  tinge  of  wonder  in  them.  But  such 
is  training,  and  such  the  value  of  this  particular  disciplinary 
system,  that  Harriet,  observing  the  matter  to  be  under 
the  aegis  of  her  mother,  the  all-powerful  and  all-wise,  she 
accepted  the  fiat  as  though  it  were  a  law  of  nature. 

Daring  the  period  interv^ening  between  the  selection  of 
a  bride  for  the  noble  valetudinarian  to  lead  to  the  altar, 
and   the    transaction   of   the    thousand   and   one   matters 

466 


MR.    BREFFIT    THE    YOUNGER 

necessary  to  enable  him  to  do  so,  Broke  was  in  Cuttisham 
several  times.  On  one  of  these  occasions  he  observed  a 
bowed  and  grey-headed  figure  shuffling  along  the  High 
Street  immediately  in  front  of  him.  There  was  something 
strikingly  familiar  in  the  back  view  of  this  object,  yet  at 
that  moment,  with  his  preoccupied  eyes  resting  only  casu- 
ally upon  it,  he  was  at  a  loss  to  know  of  whom  it  might 
consist.  The  force  of  his  recognition  was  almost  ridiculous, 
and  yet  it  baffled  him.  When,  however,  it  stopped  and 
turned  in  at  the  familiar  doorway  of  Mr.  Breffit's  estate 
office,  the  remarkable  yet  strangely  remote  likeness  to  his 
old  agent  rushed  upon  him. 

He  desired  to  consult  his  man  of  business  on  several 
matters.  But  since  old  Breffit  had  gone  to  live  at  Tufton 
Hall  he  had  been  by  no  means  so  easy  to  catch  as  of  yore. 
It  was  hardly  likely  that  he  would  be  at  his  office  now,  for 
Broke  could  not  bring  himself  to  admit  that  the  bent 
figure  which  had  passed  in  front  of  him  was  the  person  he 
wished  to  see.     He  decided,  however,  to  go  in  and  inquire. 

He  was  informed  that  Mr.  Breffit  was  there  and  would 
see  him.  And  the  moment  Broke  entered  the  inner 
room  he  was  aware  of  the  fact  that  the  old  man  he 
had  failed  to  recognize  a  few  minutes  ago  in  the  street  was 
he  who  stood  before  him  now. 

Our  hero's  powers  of  observation  were  pecuharly  limited, 
but  he  was  shocked  by  the  change  in  old  Breffit.  He  had 
last  seen  him  at  Tufton  a  few  months  ago,  a  hale  and  hearty 
old  man,  with  an  almost  boyish  alertness  of  demeanour, 
and  a  keen  zest  in  life.  There  was  no  indication  then  that 
anything  ailed  him.  He  was  one  whom  you  might  point 
to  as  likely  to  live  to  a  hundred  years  old.  Now,  however, 
all  was  changed.  The  old  fire,  the  old  vigour,  had  passed 
out  of  him  entirely.  In  lieu  of  the  vivacious  countenance 
he  was  wont  to  present  at  the  appearance  of  the  first  of  his 
patrons,  there  was  only  a  mask  that  had  the  coldness  of 
death.  In  every  line  was  the  evidence  of  a  singular 
deterioration.  The  erect  form,  the  conscious  uplift  of  the 
head  were  no  more.  The  so-shrewd  and  piercing  eyes  were 
bloodshot  and  vacillating.  The  hands,  once  so  stable  and 
full  of  sinew,  were  nerveless  and  flabby  and  shook  as  though 
a  palsy  was  upon  them.     Every  feature  was  weaker  and 

407 


BROKE    OF   COVENDEN 

grosser,  a  little  more  lacking  in  intelligence  and  self-esteem. 

Upon  the  entrance  of  Broke  this  travesty  of  a  once 
great  man  lurched  forward  to  greet  him,  and  in  so  doing 
lost  his  balance  and  nearly  measured  his  length  on  the 
carpet.     The  table  saved  him. 

"  Ah,  Mr.  Broke,"  he  said  in  a  mechanical  voice,  so  little 
like  his  habitual  eager  tones  that  his  old  client  was  shocked 
by  it.  "  I  see  it's  you.  Pleased  to  see  you,  sir,  pleased  to 
see  you.     Sit  down,  sir,  won't  you  ?  " 

The  change  in  the  old  man's  voice  and  manner  was  even 
more  remarkable  than  in  his  appearance.  The  supple, 
ingratiating  airs  of  former  days  had  yielded  place  to  a 
thick  husky  indecision  of  speech  and  gesture.  It  occurred 
to  Broke  as  he  looked  at  him  that  had  it  not  been  old 
Breffit's  boast  that  he  had  been  a  teetotaler  all  his  life  he 
would  have  supposed  he  had  been  drinking  heavily. 

"  'Souse  me,  sir,"  said  the  old  man,  reeling  before  him 
even  now,  "  but  I'm  not  very  well.  Not  been  at  all  well 
lately,  you  know,  sir." 

"  Indeed  ;  I  am  sorry  to  hear  that.  May  I  ask  what  is 
wrong  ?  ' 

The  old  man  put  his  hand  to  his  head  with  a  haggard 
expression  as  one  who  suffers  an  overpowering  pain  in  his 
brain. 

"  I — I  don't  think  I  quite  know  myself,  sir,"  he  said 
huskily.     "  I — I  suppose  I  must  be  breaking  up." 

"  Surely  not,  my  dear  Breffit.  Not  at  your  time  of  life. 
Why,  do  you  know  I  thought  when  I  saw  you  earlier  in 
the  summer,  that  you  were  just  the  sort  of  man  to  make 
ninety  or  even  more.  Remarkably  hale  and  hearty  you 
were.     A  country  life  seemed  the — ah — very  thing  for  you." 

"  I  gave  up  the  country  more  than  a  month  ago.  I 
found  it  did  not  agree  with  me,  so  I  returned  to  Cuttisham, 
where  I  was  born,  where  I  have  lived  all  my  life,  and 
where,  Mr.  Broke,  I  mean  to  die." 

"  You — ah — astonish  me,"  said  Broke,  distressed  by 
that  dreary  tone  in  one  of  such  a  natural  robustness. 
"  I — ah — could  not  have  suspected  that  a  country  life 
would  disagree  with  anybody." 

A  degree  of  hesitation  appeared  in  Mr.  Brefiit  that 
Broke  found  painful  to  look  upon. 

46S 


MR.    BREFFIT   THE    YOUNGER 

"  Ah,  sir,  it  is  not  altogether  a  country  life  that  has 
upset  me.     You  must  not  think  it  is  altogether  that." 

The  old  man  seemed  to  be  gathering  his  resolution  to 
add  something  to  these  words  to  make  them  plain  ;  but 
as  he  came  to  the  point  of  doing  so,  he  stopped  and 
abruptly  turned  away  his  face. 

"  I  am  really  sorry  to  see  you  so  run  down,  Breffit,"  said 
his  client,  with  grave  kindliness. 

When  all  was  said,  the  old  fellow  was  one  of  the  best  and 
truest  friends  and  servants  man  ever  had.  That  sight  of 
him  installed  at  Tufton  a  few  months  ago,  giving  himself 
all  manner  of  airs  which  nature  had  never  intended  should 
belong  to  him,  had  caused  his  gorge  to  rise  against  him,  it 
was  true.  But,  after  all,  that  was  but  a  minor  incident  in  a 
harmonious  and  profitable  intercourse  of  many  years.  He 
was  not  the  one  lightly  to  forget  services  faithfully  rendered, 
nor  those  who  had  rendered  them,  whoever  they  might  be. 
Now  to  find  poor  old  Brelht  broken  down  utterly  in  mind 
and  body  was  to  think  only  of  the  benefactions  he  had 
received  at  his  hands. 

"  Have  you  seen  a  doctor,  Breffit  ?  I — ah — suppose 
you  have.  I  hope  it  will  not  prove  so  serious  as  you  think. 
I  feel  sure  that  a  man  of  your  fine  constitution,  a  constitu- 
tion that  has  always  been  envied  by  all  who  have  known 
you,  cannot  be  suffering  from  old  age  yet  awhile.  You  are 
not  much  the  wrong  side  of  sixty  ?  " 

"  Seventy-one,  sir.  Although  people  do  say  I  have 
never  looked  my  age.  You  see,  sir,  I  have  led  such  a  busy 
and  active  life  that  I  have  had  no  time  to  grow  old.  I 
have  been  a  worker  all  my  life,  Mr.  Broke,  but  suddenly 
it  has  come  upon  me  that  I  can  work  no  more.  It  has 
come  upon  me  all  at  once  during  the  last  week  or  two.  I 
am  about  done,  sir,  I  am  about  done." 

"  No,  no,  my  dear  Brefht." 

"  I  have  about  had  my  innings,  sir.  There  is  nothing 
to  carry  me  on  now.  There  is  nothing  to  work  for,  nothing 
to  look  forward  to.  Oh,  my  God,  I  wish  to-night  I  could 
go  to  bed  and  never  wake  any  more  !  " 

With  an  outburst  of  querulous  passion  which,  to  one  of 
Broke' s  self-contained  spirit,  was  ineffably  shocking,  the  old 
man  suddenly  covered  his  face  with  his  hands  and  burst 

469 


BROKE   OF   COVENDEN 

into  tears.     The  next  instant,  however,  he  had  recovered 
sufficiently  to  proceed  with  his  rather  piteous  monotone. 

"  At  my  time  of  hfe,  you  see,  sir,  a  man  cannot  get  new 
hopes  and  ideas  and  begin  all  over  again.  He  has  not  the 
strength  and  spirit  of  a  younger  man  to  begin  building 
anew  when  his  fine  castles  that  it  has  taken  him  the  best 
part  of  a  lifetime  to  set  up  have  tumbled  about  his  ears. 
There  is  a  limit  to  human  endurance,  sir,  and  I  have 
reached  it.  Only  one  thing  do  I  ask  now,  and  it  is  the 
thing  your  doctors  would  deny  me  if  they  could.  But 
they  will  not  be  able  to,  sir,  they  will  not  be  able." 

"  You  must  not  talk  like  that,  my  dear  Brcflit,  you  must 
not  indeed.     Such  men  as  you  cannot  be  spared." 

Again  the  tears  began  to  trickle  down  the  face  of  his 
agent. 

"  You  speak  very  kindly,  Mr.  Broke,  and  it  gives  me 
pleasure  to  hear  you  say  that.  It  comforts  me  to  know 
I  am  not  despised  by  everybody." 

"  I — ah — assure  you,  my  dear  Breffit,  that  so  far  from 
being  despised  you  have  long  had  the  admiration  of  many 
besides  myself." 

"  Ah,  sir,  you  do  not  know,  you  do  not  know  !  You 
cannot  understand,  sir.  With  all  your  kindness  towards 
one  who  is  old  and  unhappy  you  cannot  understand.  The 
fact  is,  I  am  heart-broken,  sir.  You  cannot  know  what  it  is 
for  the  children  you  have  cherished  all  these  long  years 
of  anxiety  and  toil  to  turn  against  you,  to  turn  their 
ungrateful  backs  upon  you." 

Broke  recoiled  from  the  old  man  involuntarily,  as 
though  a  bullet  had  embedded  itself  in  his  flesh,  without 
knowing  exactly  how  it  had  got  in  or  where.  It  was  like 
a  red-hot  wire  being  drawn  across  a  nerve. 

"  You  don't  know,  sir,  what  it  is  to  suffer  that  from  an 
only  son  in  whom  all  your  hopes  have  been  centred,"  the 
old  man  went  on  while  Broke  stood  harrowed  by  this 
spasm  of  unexpected  agony.  "  You  don't  know,  sir,  and 
never  will  know  what  it  is  to  have  your  latter  days  made 
intolerable  by  one  you  have  spent  the  best  part  of  your 
life  in  fostering  ;  for  whom  you  would  have  parted  with 
the  coat  off  your  back ;  to  whom  you  would  have  given 
your  last  penny." 

470 


MR.    BREFFIT   THE    YOUNGER 

A  haggard  sweat  had  begun  to  creep  out  of  Broke.  He 
strove  to  close  his  ears  against  all  the  old  man  said.  But 
it  seemed  as  though  there  was  a  devil  in  his  heart  that  took 
a  foul  pleasure  in  repeating  to  his  protesting  senses  every 

syllable  his  agent  uttered. 

"  I  cannot  tell  you,  sir,"  the  horrid  voice  inside  him 
re-echoed,  "  what  high  hopes  I  had  for  my  boy.  Every 
aspiration  I  had  was  centred  in  him.  I  procured  him  the 
best  education,  school,  sir,  and  college  too,  and  the  finest 
friends  that  money  could  purchase.  I  filled  his  mind  with 
lofty  thoughts.  I  purchased  a  noble  mansion  and  gave 
it  to  him  ;  and  in  my  own  lifetime,  sir,  I  gave  him  half  my 
fortune  also,  that  he  might  be  able  to  hold  up  his  head 
before  the  world.  And  now,  sir,  having  done  all  this,  in 
what  manner  do  you  think  he  rewards  me  ?  I  will  tell 
you,  Mr.  Broke.  He  laughs  at  me  behind  my  back,  and 
he  shuts  the  door  of  his  house  in  my  face." 

A  succession  of  hard  sobs  barred  the  old  man's  voice, 
and  he  was  compelled  to  wait  until  they  had  passed. 

"  Yes,  sir,  he  shuts  the  door  of  his  house  in  my  face,  the 
house  I  had  purchased  for  him  and  paid  for  in  the  sweat 
of  my  brow  !  Ah,  Mr.  Broke,  you  may  well  not  under- 
stand. I  wonder  if  those  dear  children  of  yours,  sir,  could 
cause  their  poor  father  that  sort  of  pain.  I  think  not,  sir, 
I  think  not.  It  had  always  been  a  dream  of  mine,  sir,  that 
my  boy  should  grow  up  to  be  like  yours.  I  know  I  am  a 
rough  diamond  myself,  '  an  impossible  person,'  as  you 
county  people  call  me.  My  father  had  not  the  means  to 
send  me  to  the  public  school  and  the  university ;  I  am  a 
self-made  man,  as  all  the  world  knows.  I  sprang  from 
nothing  ;  I  am  the  architect  of  my  own  fortunes,  as  they 
say.  But  I  wanted  my  son  to  be  like  that  fine  lad  of 
yours,  Mr.  Broke  ;  I  wanted  him  to  be  the  gentleman. 
And  I  did  by  my  boy  as  you  did  by  yours,  sir  ;  I  lavished 
money  on  his  education,  and  afterwards  placed  him  in  a 
position  to  do  justice  to  it.     And  now — and  now !  " 

The  old  man  was  unable  to  conclude  the  sentence,  for 
again  the  hard  sobs  had  barred  his  throat.  A  no-less  measure 
of  anguish  had  been  communicated  to  the  listener. 
The  man  before  him  was  merged  from  the  machine  of 
business  into  the  human  father.     The  same    complaint 

471 


BROKE   OF   COVENDEN 

re-echoed  in  both  empty  hearts.  They  were  drawn 
together  by  the  common  theme  of  a  son's  ingratitude. 
Broke  had  endeavoured  to  banish  his  own  son  from  his 
thoughts  by  an  effort  of  the  will ;  but  he  had  been  taught 
already  that,  do  what  he  would,  the  pale  spectre  of  him 
must  be  for  ever  lurking  in  their  outskirts  and  rendering 
them  horrible.  A  too-pregnant  fact  or  a  moment's  relaxa- 
tion of  his  vigilance  and  the  spectre  glided  back  into  the 
empty  halls  where  of  yore  he  was  wont  to  reign.  The 
analogy  between  his  agent's  case  and  his  own  was  intoler- 
able. Even  in  his  despair,  however,  there  was  the  spark 
of  comfort,  offered  to  him  by  his  pride,  perhaps  in  mock- 
ery, that  his  own  son  had  not  shown  himself  capable  of 
the  same  degree  of  sordid  meanness.  There  was  left  that 
shred  of  consolation.  Thus,  when  the  winter  falls  about 
our  numb  souls  do  we  stretch  the  threadbare  mantles  of 
our  pride  to  cover  them  ! 

"  I  have  not  the  spirit  to  get  over  it  now,"  said  the 
maudlin  old  man.  "  I  am  heart-broken.  Everything 
that  boy  had  I  gave  him  and  now  he  turns  me  from  his 
door.  I  am  not  good  enough  for  him  and  the  fine  friends 
that  he  bought  with  the  money  I  fought  so  hard  to  win 
for  him.  He  carries  his  head  so  high  that  it  overlooks  his 
old  father.  He  and  his  fine  friends  laugh  at  the  old  man 
behind  his  back,  and  when  one  or  another  of  them  happens 
to  mistake  him  for  the  butler  they  think  it  is  the  finest 
joke  in  the  world.  It  is  Mr.  Hamilton-Breffit  with  him 
now,  Mr.  George  Hamilton-Breffit  with  a  hyphen.  Such 
a  common  name  as  his  father's  by  itself  is  not  good  enough 
for  the  likes  of  him.  The  only  thing  about  me  that  is 
good  enough  for  him,  sir,  is  my  money.  He  is  still  good 
enough  to  accept  that  and  make  use  of  it,  just  as  he  was 
good  enough  to  accept  and  make  use  of  me  so  long  as  I 
could  be  useful  to  him.  But  I  cannot  be  useful  to  him 
any  more,  do  you  see,  sir  ?  I  have  given  him  all  that  he 
desires,  and  now  he  turns  round  and  casts  me  off  like  an 
old  coat.  He  is  to  marry  the  daughter  of  an  carl,  and 
then  it  will  be  Mr.  George  and  Lady  Augusta  Hamilton- 
Breffit.  Of  course  he  could  not  have  such  '  a  shocking 
old  bounder  '  as  me  about  the  place — I  am  quoting  his  own 
words,    sir — could  he  ?     while  that   was   being   arranged. 

472 


MR.  BREFFIT   THE    YOUNGER 

But  for  one  thing,  Mr.  Broke,  I  rejoice.  It  was  wise  and 
right  of  you  to  have  none  of  him.  You  could  guess  what 
he  was,  sir,  all  the  time,  you  could  guess  what  he  was  before 
my  eyes  were  opened.  ^*  would  hav^  fjrieved  me  to  see 
such  a  one  as  that  polluting  a  fine  old  family  such  as  yours. 
I  must  ask  pardon  of  you,  Mr.  Broke,  for  ever  making  the 
suggestion.  But  you  see,  sir,  he  had  not  come  out  in  his 
true  colours  then." 

Overborne  by  his  recital  of  his  sorrows,  the  old  man 
paused,  lurched  to  a  cupboard  and  produced  a  tumbler 
and  a  bottle  of  brandy. 

"  I  have  to  take  a  little  sorjiething  now  to  keep  me 
going,"  he  said  apologetically.  "  I  do  not  think  I  could 
bear  up  under  it  at  all  if  I  did  not." 

Broke  laid  his  hand  on  his  shoulder,  not  without 
emotion. 

"  Don't  you — ah — think,  my  dear  Breffit.that  if  you — ah — 
went  away  to  fresh  scenes  for  a  bit  it  might  do  you  some 
good  ?  Why  not  go  to  the  sea  or  travel  on  the  Continent  ? 
I  feel  sure  a  doctor  would  advise  it.  There  is — ah — ah — 
nothing  hke  a  complete  change  to  put  a  man  right." 

Mr.  Breffit  made  a  hollow  laugh. 

"  It  is  kindly  meant,  Mr.  Broke,  and  I  thank  you,  but 
you  do  not  understand  what  it  means  to  me.  How  can 
you,  sir,  when  you  have  never  had  to  pass  through  it 
yourself,  and  never  will  ?  All  the  change  of  scene  in  the 
world  cannot  do  me  any  good.  Nothing  will  ever  put  me 
right  again.  I  don't  want  to  be  put  right,  I  am  old  and 
lonely  and  tired  of  life.  There  is  no  purpose  in  it  now. 
1  want  to  die  now  and  leave  the  remainder  of  my  money 
to  a  deserving  charity.  A  quarter  of  a  million  is  the  sum. 
It  seems  a  lot,  does  it  not,  sir  ?  Every  penny  of  it  have 
I  earned  myself,  yet  it  has  brought  me  no  pleasure.  I  was 
a  much  happier  man  when  I  was  poor  ;  and  had  I  remained 
poor  I  do  not  think  I  should  have  had  to  suffer  the  ingrati- 
tude of  an  only  son.  It  seems  a  heavy  price  to  pay  for 
wealth,  does  it  not  ?  A  few  months  ago  I  was  worth  half 
a  million,  but  half  of  that  I  gave  away  to  him  I  can  never 
mention  more.  I  don't  know  what  to  do  with  the  rest, 
sir.  But  I  will  write  off  that  little  item  of  Mrs.  Broke's  ; 
and  there  are  several  other  trifling  little  items  that  the 

47-3 


BROKE   OF   COVENDEN 

estate  has  owed  me  at  various  times  that  I  shall  write  off 
too.  What  are  a  few  pounds  like  that  to  me  ?  I  have 
neither  kith  nor  kin  in  the  world  but  that  one,  the  one  I 
worked  for  late  and  early,  the  one  I  was  always  planning 
and  devising  for.  I  don't  know  to  what  use  I  can  put  my 
money.  I  should  have  liked  it  to  have  done  a  little  good 
to  somebody,  to  somebody  in  whom  I  took  an  interest. 
It  has  done  no  good  to  me  and  mine.  I  should  like  to  feel 
that  my  life  has  not  been  spent  quite  in  vain," 

"  No  one  can — ah — say  that,  my  dear  Breffit,"  said  Broke, 
touched  more  keenly  by  the  old  man's  despair  than  he 
was  prepared  to  admit  even  to  himself.  "  I — ah — am  not 
in  the  habit  of  speaking  without  reflection,  my  dear  Breffit, 
but — ah — I  can  say  it  from  my  heart  that  not  in  our  time 
at  any  rate  shall  we — ah — landowners  look  on  your  hke 
again," 

The  tottering  and  enfeebled  old  man  drank  off  the  stiff 
glass  of  brandy  he  had  mixed  for  himself.  He  then  peered 
up  rather  timidly  to  the  first  among  his  clients  with  a 
wistful  brightness  suddenly  running  in  his  dull  eyes. 

"  It  gives  me  pleasure  to  hear  you  say  that,  sir  ;  it  is  just 
what  I  should  like  to  have  said  of  me.  I — I  thank  you, 
sir." 

Suddenl}^  the  old  man  bent  forward  to  his  oldest  client 
with  something  of  his  former  ner\'ous  vivacity. 

"  I  wish,  Mr.  Broke,  you  were  not  so  proud,"  he  said, 
with  an  eager  furtiveness  that  was  also  slightly  wistful. 

Our  hero  did  not  reply  to  a  charge  that  he  was  prepared 
to  sustain  against  himself.  And  he  was  far  too  obtuse  to 
apprehend  the  particular  train  of  thought  that  was  under- 
lying it  in  the  present  instance.  In  his  mind  there  was 
not  the  faintest  connection  between  this  speech  and  what 
had  passed  immediately  before.  Drink  and  misfortune 
had  doubtless  undermined  the  poor  old  fellow  a  good  deal. 
It  was  useless  to  trouble  oneself  by  trying  to  find  out 
what  he  meant.  The  old  man,  meeting  with  no  response 
whatever,  had  not  the  courage  to  pursue  a  subject  upon 
which  he  had  been  bracing  up  all  his  faculties  to  enter. 

"  You  hear  people  say,"  he  continued,  with  a  relapse 
into  his  dreary  strain,  "  that  wealth  means  happiness. 
But  from  my  heart,  sir,  I  can  say  it  is  a  curse.     It  is  the 

474 


MR.    BREFFIT   THE    YOUNGER 

possession  of  money  alone  that  has  brought  me  to  this. 
It  is  money  that  has  made  my  only  son  a  better  man  than 
his  father  ;  had  I  remained  poor  and  he  had  been  poor  also, 
he  would  never  have  broken  my  heart  by  despising  me  in 
my  old  age.  Wealth  is  responsible  for  evils  far  beyond 
those  of  poverty.  I  began  poor  enough,  as  indeed  God 
knows !  but  when,  fifty  years  ago,  I  had  only  bread  and 
cheese  to  my  dinner,  and  not  always  that,  life  was  a  very 
different  thing." 

For  a  long  time  the  old  man  went  on  in  this  maudlin 
way.  With  weary  iteration  he  continued  to  harp  upon 
that  which  had  overborne  him.  Broke  remained  deeply 
affected  by  the  change  in  that  sane  and  alert  spirit ;  and 
he  was  oppressed  also  by  a  sense  of  analogy  to  the  too- 
poignant  emotions  that  lately  had  taxed  the  whole  strength 
of  his  nature.  Thus  at  the  first  opportunity  he  made  a 
pretext  for  effecting  his  escape. 

It  was  well  to  breathe  again  the  outer  air  after  being 
confined  in  that  intolerable  room  reeking  with  the  fumes 
of  brandy.  But  every  step  of  his  way  back  to  Covenden 
he  could  not  rid  his  mind  of  the  shadow  of  a  once-great  man 
he  had  left  there.  He  had  never  had  the  least  tenderness 
for  his  agent  in  his  capacity  as  a  human  being.  He  stood 
to  him  in  the  relation  of  a  machine  for  the  conduct  of 
business,  pure  and  simple  ;  and  more  than  once  the  thought 
had  occurred  to  him  that,  even  considered  as  a  machine, 
he  was  neither  pure  nor  simple.  He  had  always  looked 
on  him  as  one  who,  over  and  above  his  indisputable  business 
gifts,  was  sordid,  grasping,  and  unscrupulous  :  a  rather 
vulgar  charlatan  whom  it  was  good  to  have  at  your  elbow 
when  you  were  compelled  by  the  remorseless  conditions 
imposed  upon  those  who  happened  to  be  landowners,  land- 
lords and  agriculturists  to  have  dealings  with  other  vulgar 
charlatans.  He  had  the  useful  knack  of  looking  after  your 
interests  at  the  same  moment  he  looked  after  his  own. 
To-day,  for  the  first  time,  the  old  man  took  his  place  in 
human  nature.  The  total  wreck  of  a  mind  so  strong,  under 
the  stress  of  anguish,  was  one  of  the  most  painful  things 
Broke  had  ever  witnessed. 

For  an  hour  it  gripped  him  by  the  heart.  He  could 
think    of  nothing  else.     The  drunken,   tottering,  blurred 

475 


BROKE    OF   COVENDEN 

and  broken  figure  rode  by  his  side  all  the  way  home.  It 
may  have  been  that  he  had  snatched  as  from  a  mirror  a 
ghmpse  of  his  own  image.  He  had  been  shaken  to  a  far 
greater  extent  than  he  cared  to  acknowledge  by  the  re- 
minders he  had  received  of  his  own  personal  afflictions. 
And  it  seemed  strange  indeed  that  he  should  suddenly 
find  himself  with  so  much  in  common  with  a  man  like  old 
Breffit.  Yet,  was  it  not  a  little  tragic  too  ?  In  the  bosom 
of  our  feudalist,  however,  the  thought  uppermost  was 
that  such  a  state  of  things  suggested  one  of  those  fantastic 
theories  formulated  by  those  bodies  of  pseudo- scientific 
persons  who  went  about  calling  themselves  by  various 
names.  It  almost  seemed  as  if  he  was  about  to  run  the 
danger  of  being  forced  to  admit  that  all  the  world  over 
human  nature  was  much  the  same.  To  this  representative 
of  an  elder  period,  a  period  of  rather  more  primitive  ideas 
than  those  obtaining  in  that  into  which,  rather  malevolently, 
he  had  been  projected,  the  people  who  belonged  to 
the  diverse  sections  of  the  social  scheme  not  only  had  a 
distinguishing  set  of  manners  and  customs,  other  modes 
of  speech  and  dress  and  wholly  different  points  of  view, 
but  their  fundamental  emotions  were  widely  different  too. 
It  was  peculiarly  irksome  to  be  in  danger  of  having  to 
admit  that  such  a  person  as  Joseph  Breffit  could  have  so 
much  as  a  heart-beat  in  common  with  a  person  such  as 
Edmund  Broke. 


476 


CHAPTER    XXXIX 
The  Last  Night 

DUST-TARNISHED  summer  passed  to  autumn  of  the 
mellow  tints  and  afterwards  to  the  later  season  of 
nature's  desolation,  but  it  was  no  more  than  that  of  the 
family  of  Covenden.  The  young  voices  of  laughter  and 
merriment  seemed  to  have  died  with  the  leaves  of  those 
summer  days.  From  the  shock  of  Delia's  flight  they 
could  not  recover.  Coming  almost  immediately  upon  the 
episode  of  their  brother,  it  was  a  crowning  blow.  It 
knocked  their  world  askew ;  and  in  their  dazed  and 
wondering  fashion  they  felt  that  nothing  ever  would  set 
it  right. 

They  entered  into  the  sudden  marriage  of  Harriet  with- 
out enthusiasm.  They  kissed  her  with  trembling  lips  when 
she  went  away  ;  but  her  smiles  were  as  wan  as  theirs.  All 
things  that  had  the  sanction  of  their  parents  they  knew 
how  to  accept  without  question,  in  the  same  manner  that 
all  things  that  had  it  not  they  could  not  tolerate.  But 
when  they  thought  of  the  dying  man  their  sister  was  to 
marry  it  was  with  a  shudder  ;  and  the  flowers  in  her  hair 
looked  like  cypress  leaves. 

The  night  before  she  was  to  be  married,  they  sat  up  far 
beyond  their  usual  hour.  They  clustered  very  close  to- 
gether in  their  common  room,  all  unutterably  sad  and 
somewhat  frightened.  To  have  been  able  to  indulge  in 
tears  would  have  been  a  relief,  but  that  had  never  been 
their  habit. 

"  We  shall  miss  you,  old  Hat,"  they  said.  "  How  we  shall 
miss  you  !  " 

477 


BROKE   OF   COVENDEN 

The  tight-lipped  Harriet  clung  first  in  the  arms  of  one  and 
then  in  those  of  another.  She  was  very  cold  and  pale  and 
her  heart  was  beating  violently. 

"  I  wish  you  were  not  going  to  leave  us,  Hat,"  said 
Philippa  mournfully. 

Harriet  clung  to  her  more  convulsively,  and  buried  her 
cold  face  against  her.  There  was  the  harsh,  repressed 
sound  of  a  sob. 

As  they  sat  in  a  half  circle  round  the  fireplace,  which 
had  no  more  than  a  few  dying  embers  in  it,  their  chins 
were  resting  on  their  hands  and  their  heavy  eyes  could  see 
nothing  but  darkness.  Out  of  their  so  slender  pocket 
money  they  had  contrived  to  subscribe  for  a  wedding 
present  to  make  to  their  sister  :  a  riding  whip  mounted 
in  silver,  with  the  letter  "H"  engraved  upon  the  handle. 
J  oan  placed  it  in  her  hand  with  a  low- voiced  apology  for 
its  humble  character. 

"  We  would  have  bought  you  a  tiara,  old  Hat,"  she 
said,  "  with  real  diamonds  in  it  if  only  we  had  had  the 
money.  We  cannot  tell  you  what  we  would  have  bought 
you  if  only  we  had  had  the  money.  Oh,  how  we  shall 
miss  you  !     How  lonely  we  shall  be  without  you  !  " 

She  pressed  her  frozen  lips  against  her  sister's  cold, 
white  face. 

"  The  old  jolly  times  will  never  come  back,"  said  Mar- 
garet. "  What  dear  jolly  days  they  have  been,  but  they 
are  over  now.     They  will  never  come  back." 

There  came  a  dead  hush.  They  all  gazed  straight  before 
them,  with  their  eyes  growing  dimmer  and  dimmer.  The 
same  thought  was  common  to  them  all. 

"  I  wish  Del  was  here,"  said  Jane  suddenly  and  softly. 

"  Poor  little  Del !"  said  Margaret,  with  an  equal  sudden- 
ness and  softness. 

"  Hush,"  said  Joan. 

"  Delia  is  happy,"  said  Harriet,  softly  putting  her  arm 
round  the  trembling  form  of  Joan. 

"  Hush,"  said  Joan  again. 

"  We  shall  never  all  ride  to  the  Meet  again  with  father 
and  Billy  and  Uncle  Charles,"  said  Philippa. 

"  Hush,  hush,"  said  Joan,  trembling  more  violently  in 
the  arms  of  Harriet. 

47S 


THE   LAST   NIGHT 

"  We  lid  not  know  what  dear,  sweet  times  they  were," 
said  Phihppa.  "  Only  now  do  we  begin  to  reahze  it,  now 
that  they  are  gone.  To  think  how  happy  we  all  were 
together  a  year  ago,  and  to  see  us  now  !  It  does  not  seem 
possible  that  so  much  can  have  changed  in  one  short 
little  year.  Still,  in  those  that  are  to  come  we  shcdl 
be  able  to  remember  those  dear,  dear  old  days,  and 
think  that  we  were  happy  once." 

"  Don't !  "  they  implored  her. 

"  I  cannot  help.it,"  said  Philippa,  who  was  shivering  in 
the  arms  of  Margaret. 

"  But  there  is  perhaps  a  silver  lining  to  a  cloud  like  this," 
said  Harriet  with  a  valour  that  was  desperate  when 
accompanied  by  that  white  face  and  cruelly  beating 
heart.  "  There  will  be  no  more  cycling  to  hounds  for  you 
four,  will  there  ?  The  dear,  dear  old  horses  will  go  round 
now  all  the  season  through  with  the  one  that  Uncle  Charles 
is  going  to  give  you.  I  said  good-bye  to  all  of  them  this 
morning.  And  I  do  believe  they  knew.  It  nearly  made 
me  cry  to  kiss  their  dear  old  velvet  noses.  I  am 
sure  they  knew  I  was  leaving  them.  Dear  old  things  !  It 
will  not  seem  like  living  at  all  to  be  without  the  Doctor, 
and  Crusader,  and  the  Colonel,  and  Pat,  and  Persephone, 
and  Whitenose,  and  Juliet,  and  Robin,  and  poor  lame  old 
Prettyface.     I  am  sure  they  knew  !  " 

"  Which  will  you  choose  to  take,  old  Hat  ? "  said 
Joan.  "  Persephone  was  always  your  special  friend, 
wasn't  she  ?  It  was  you  who  gave  her  a  grand  sounding 
name  to  make  it  up  to  her  a  bit,  because  she  was  not  so  well 
bred  as  some  of  the  others.  But  you  shall  have  one  of  the 
thoroughbreds,  too.  There  is  the  Doctor  and  Pat  and 
Juliet." 

"  No,  Joan,"  said  Harriet,  with  a  choking  firmness.  "  I 
have  no  right.  I  would  dearly  love  one  of  them  just  for 
the  sake  of  the  dear  old  days  that  will  never  come  back. 
But  it  would  not  be  fair.  I  shall  have  ever  so  many 
horses,  although  they  can  never,  never  be  the  same." 

No  amount  of  insistence  on  the  part  of  her  self-sacri- 
ficing sisters  would  induce  her  to  alter  her  resolve.  Like 
them,  she  had  learned  to  subdue  her  private  instincts  for 
the  common  good. 

■      479 


BROKE   OF    COVENDEN 

There  was  present  at  this  last  gathering  so  mournful, 
so  exquisite,  so  tender  beyond  expression,  a  sense  of  the 
impending  that  they  could  not  explain.  Billy  and  Delia 
were  lost  to  them,  for  ever ;  their  father  was  ageing 
visibly  every  day;  to-morrow  Harriet  was  to  be 
plucked  out  of  their  arms  to  undergo  a  life  of  great  un- 
happiness ;  but  over  and  above  all  these  accumulated 
sorrows,  there  was  a  sense  of  those  more  dreadful,  because 
unnamed,  that  were  to  come.  Shadows  out  of  the  future 
were  thrown  before  their  eyes.  These,  forebodings  may 
have  been  the  fruit  of  that  sore  mutilation  of  their  in- 
stincts which  had  of  late  infected  them  in  so  cruel  a  degree 
with  the  sense  of  tears  in  mortal  things. 

Mrs.  Broke  visited  Harriet  that  night  as  she  lay  in  her 
bed  sleepless  and  wide-eyed.  She  bent  over  the  white  face 
and  touched  the  cold  forehead  with  her  lips. 

"  It  is  for  us  all,  my  dear  one,"  she  said  in  a  low  voice. 
"  I  thank  you  for  being  so  sweet  and  patient  and  obedient. 
It  may  seem  a  little  hard  to  you,  my  dear  one  ;  but  for 
your  father  and  myself  and  your  sisters  it  is  also  hard.  But 
I  am  sure  1  have  no  need  to  say  it ;  you  are  all  good,  brave 
girls  ;  and  you  would  not  hesitate  to  help  your  father  and 
myself  in  any  way  that  was  asked  of  you.  You  have  always 
been  perfectly  right-minded,  perfectly  amenable,  always  a 
great  comfort  to  us  both." 

Harriet,  in  common  with  her  sisters,  had  passed  her  life 
in  abject  fear  of  the  awful  being  she  called  mother.  She  was 
afraid  of  her  at  this  moment,  although  the  awful  being  was 
talking  to  her  in  a  manner  of  tenderness  that  was  entirely 
new.  The  prepossessions  of  a  lifetime  are  not  to  be  up- 
rooted in  a  minute.  Yet,  in  fear  of  her  mother  as  she  was 
the  dread  of  her  was  not  so  great  as  of  the  new  life  that 
lay  before  her.  There  would  be  no  affectionate  bond  of 
sisterhood,  no  boon  companionships,  no  proud  yet  tender 
father,  no  dear,  querulous,  kind-hearted  uncle  to  alleviate 
her  sense  of  loneliness,  or  enlighten  that  black  abyss 
that  was  called  the  Future.  Convulsively  as  she  had 
clung  to  her  sisters  an  hour  ago,  she  clung  to  her  mother 
now. 

Mrs.  Broke  was  deeplv  affected  by  the  passionate  silence 
of  the  child.     The  grip  of  the  cold  hands,  the  pressure  of  the 

480 


THE    LAST    NIGHT 

cold  check  against  her  own,  the  frozen  sobs,  the  roving, 
frightened  eyes  told  too  poignantly  of  all  that  was  passing 
in  her.  Increasingly  difficult  as  it  had  become  of  late,  it 
had  never  been  harder  than  at  this  moment  to  keep  the 
mask  of  inscrutability  upon  her  face.  Her  very  soul  had 
fallen  faint  of  late.  Life  was  growing  to  demand  too  much. 
Less  and  less  were  the  gains  becoming  worth  the  price.  To 
what  end  was  all  this  pinching  and  scraping  and  con- 
triving, this  frenzy  of  expedience  ?  Two  children  of 
her  flesh  had  been  torn  out  of  her  arms  by  Circumstance, 
that  ruthless  bully,  and  now  she  was  yielding  up  a  third 
wantonl  y  and  of  her  own  free  will.  She  pressed  a  last  caress, 
a  brief  final  memento  of  hungry  love,  on  the  cold  face,  and 
quitted  the  room  with  unsteady  haste.  She  went  down  to 
her  husband,  who  sat  reading  the  Field  in  the  enfolding 
gloom  and  silence  of  the  library.  At  the  sound  of  her 
entrance  he  put  down  his  newspaper,  and  looked  at  his 
wife  earnestly. 

"  Well,  old  girl." 

Of  late  he  had  exhibited  a  tenderness  for  her  which  she 
was  inclined  to  feel  as  slightly  exaggerated  in  one  of  such  a 
self-contained  and  frugal  spirit. 

"  You  look  tired,"  he  said,  peering  at  her  through  the 
shadows  cast  by  the  reading-lamp.  "  You  work  that 
brain  of  yours  too  hard.  I  wish  you  did  not  overdrive  it 
quite  so  much.     You  want  a  rest." 

Mrs.  Broke  forced  a  laugh.  It  jangled  a  discord  among 
our  hero's  nerves. 

"  Suppose  you  go  to  the  sea  for  a  fortnight,  and  take  the 
girls  ?    They  want  a  change,  too." 

"  Yes,  Edmund,  if  you  come  also." 

Broke  repudiated  the  suggestion  with  scorn. 

"  What  do  I  want  with  a  change  ?  I  am  as  strong  as  an 
oak  tree.     Besides,  what  about  the  shooting  ?  " 

His  wife  looked  only  at  the  thin  hair  upon  his  temples 
and  his  sunken  cheeks.  The  appearance  of  the  robust, 
ruddy  farmer  of  the  early  summer  was  with  him  no  more. 
In  an  incredibly  short  time  it  had  given  place  to  some- 
thing far  otherwise.  In  a  few  brief  months  he  had  become 
a  travesty  of  what  he  had  been  once.  As  they  peered  at 
one  another  a  profound  silence  intervened  suddenly.     It 

481  HH 


BROKE   OF   COVENDEN 

was  acute  in  its  completeness.  They  were  both  thinking 
of  the  same  thing. 

"  I  wish  there  was  not  that  wedding  coming  off,"  said 
Broke,  terminating  it  with  the  same  abruptness  that  it  had 
begun.  "  I  wish  we  had  not  to  go  to  it.  We  shall  miss 
poor  little  Hat  very  much." 

"  The  child  is  very  brave  and  good.  But  it  is  another 
vacant  place.  One  hardly  understands  what  they  mean  to 
one  until  they  go.  Three  in  a  few  brief  months  !  Do  you  not 
think,  Edmund,  you  could  make  it  only  two  ?  " 

"  What  do  you  mean  ?  "  said  Broke,  with  a  harsh  change 
in  his  voice. 

"  Will  you  not  go  to  the  cottage  and  accept  that  poor 
lonely  child  ?  It  might  make  things  easier  for  her  ;  and  I 
am  sure,  Edmund,  it  would  for  us." 

"  When,  my  poor  girl,  will  you  learn  to  understand  that 
when  certain  books  are  closed  they  cannot  be  opened 
again  ?  " 

"  Never,  Edmund." 

"  Why  this  —  ah  —  morbid  craving  to  reopen  old 
wounds  ?  " 

"It  is  by  that  means,  Edmund,  and  that  means  only, 
that  we  shall  be  brought  to  recognize  the  blindness  and 
futility  of  our    acts." 

"  Good  night.     I  am  going  to  bed." 

Our  hero  rose  from  his  chair  as  abruptly  as  he  spoke,  and 
walked  out  of  the  room. 


482 


CHAPTER  XL 

In  which  Mr.  Breffit  the  Elder  writes  off 
another  Little  Item  of  his  Account 

A  FEW  days  afterwards  there  came  a  painful  piece  of 
news.  Old  Mr.  Breffit  had  fallen  downstairs  and 
broken  his  neck.     Broke  and  his  wife  were  greatly  shocked. 

"  Poor,  poor  old  man,"  said  Mrs.  Broke.  "  And  on  the 
eve,  too,  of  his  son's  marriage." 

"  Ah,  a  tale  hangs  thereby,"  said  Broke  darkly.  "  I 
think  I  had  better  tell  it ;  the  moral  is  not  to  be  despised." 

Thereupon  he  gave  a  few  salient  particulars  of  his  last 
singular  interview  with  the  old  man  at  Cuttisham. 

"  I  remember  it  made  a  rather  horrible  impression  upon 
me  at  the  time.  I  believe  he  was  drinking  himself  to  death 
then.  The  change  in  the  poor  old  fellow  was  appalling. 
I  call  the  whole  business  as  pitiable  as  anything  I  have  ever 
known." 

"  I  call  it  tragedy,"  said  Mrs.  Broke.  "  That  the  unfor- 
tunate man  should  spend  his  life  in  the  pursuit  of  a  thing 
which  was  so  bitterly  to  recoil  upon  him  !  It  seems  very 
ruthless,  very  cruel.  The  poor  old  man  must  be  enormously 
wealthy." 

"  He  told  me  the  exact  figures,  but  I  forget  them.  By 
the  way,  I  can  recall  a  rather  strange  expression  he  made 
use  of.  He  said  he  was  at  a  loss  to  know  what  to  do  with 
the  quarter  of  a  million  or  so  he  had  not  already  given  to  his 
son.  He  assumed  that  he  would  have  to  bestow  it  on 
deserving  charities,  as  he  had  no  other  kith  or  kin.  And 
then  I  remember  the  poor  old  felfow  said  suddenly,  in  a 

4B3 


BROKE    OF    COVENDEN 

very  odd,  queer  way,  '  I  wish  you  were  not  so  proud,  Mr. 
Broke.'  At  the  time  I  did  not  follow  his  meaning,  but  it 
struck  me  afterwards  that  he  may  have  looked  on  me  as  a 
deserving  charity  also." 

"  Perhaps  he  did,  Edmund." 

"  He  may.  Even  at  that  time  he  was  very  far  gone  in 
drink." 

"  Had  this  hj^othesis  occurred  to  you  at  the  time 
how  would  you  have  answered  him  ?  " 

"  Well,  I  suppose  I  should  have  been  obliged  to  laugh 
at  the  poor  maudlin  old  fool,  although  I  am  sure  it  woiild 
have  given  me  pain.  I  never  saw  a  man  change  so  much 
in  so  short  a  time." 

This  chance  phrase  of  the  late  Mr.  Brefiit's,  and  the  hebe- 
tude of  her  husband  in  regard  to  it  was  a  source  of  grave 
unhappiness  to  Mrs.  Broke.  In  her  imagination  she 
heightened  its  significance  until  it  shone  forth  as  a  deliberate 
renunciation  of  a  sum  of  money  that  would  have  set  them 
on  their  legs  again.  Strictly  speaking,  it  was  nothing  of  the 
kind  ;  but  so  prone  are  our  minds  to  magnify  the  might- 
have-been  that  a  fact  not  momentous  in  itself  assumed 
inordinate  proportions. 

There  was  another  aspect  to  the  affair  that  had  better- 
grounded  reasons  for  causing  her  distress.  The  sum  of 
two  thousand  pounds  she  had  borrowed  from  Mr.  Breffit 
for  purposes  of  private  speculation  would  be  demanded 
more  peremptorily  by  the  executors  of  his  will  than  it  would 
have  been  by  the  old  man  himself. 

"  I  don't  know  what  we  shall  do  when  they  come  down 
upon  us  for  it,"  she  said.  "  If  they  were  to  distrain  upon 
our  personal  goods  I  do  not  think  at  the  present  time  they 
would  make  two  thousand  pounds.  In  any  case,  we  shall 
be  obliged  to  give  up  Covenden  almost  at  once." 

"  I — ah — thmk  you  take  an  extreme  view,"  said  Broke, 
but  his  face  had  a  fluttered  look  of  alarm.  "  I — ah — ah — 
believe  Breffit  said  he  would  not  press  for  the  money  ; 
although,  when  we  get  it,  it  shall  certainly  be  repaid.  But 
I — ah — think  we  had  better  not  bother  our  heads  about  it 
just  now.  Things  have  always  sorted  themselves  out  for 
us  a  bit  in  one  way  or  another.  Let  us  hope  they  aJways 
will." 

4S4 


MR.    BREFFIT    THE    ELDER 

"  You  remind  me,  my  poor  Edmund,  of  the  man  who 
stated  the  other  day  in  regard  to  this  hideous  mess  in  South 
Africa,  that  he  supposed  we  should  manage  '  to  muddle 
through,'  as  so  often  we  had  muddled  through  before.  It 
is  reassuring  to  find  two  such  representative  Englishmen 
as  yourself  and  the  First  Lord  of  the  Treasury  taking  such 
a  statesmanlike  view  of  the  predicament  in  which  you 
happen  to  find  yourselves.  Clearly  it  is  a  case  of  two  highly 
practical  and  pre-eminently  reasonable  minds  jumping 
together.  The  doctrine  of '  what  has  been  will  be  '  may  be 
comfortable  enough  as  far  as  it  goes ;  but  I  must  confess  to  a 
merely  mundane  and  unenlightened  intelligence  such  as 
mine  its  limitations  are  apt  to  appear  a  little  grievous." 

"  We  must  keep  pegging  away,  anyhow,"  said  Broke, 
making  no  attempt,  as  was  his  custom,  to  follow  his  wife 
through  the  course  of  her  dialectics.  "And  you — ah — will 
find  things  will  come  out  all  right  in  the  end." 

"Now  that  Mr.  Brefht  is  no  more,  we  shall  have  to  cast 
about  for  a  new  agent.  It  is  hardly  likely  that  his  son  will 
carry  on  the  business.  I  shudder  to  think  how  serious 
a  matter  it  may  prove.  Our  affairs  are  so  hopelessly  com- 
promised that  it  may  be  impossible  to  get  a  new  man  to 
undertake  the  responsibility  of  dealing  with  them.  It  is 
only  now  that  Mr.  Breffit  is  gone  that  we  shall  fully  realize 
what  we  have  owed  to  his  fidelity  and  sagacity.  And  to 
his  generosity  we  have  owed  even  more.  I  am  convinced — 
although  in  the  case  of  a  man  with  such  a  reputation  for 
hard  business  qualities,  the  statement  on  the  face  of  it 
may  appear  absurd — that  he  has  lost  rather  than  gained  by 
the  transaction  of  our  affairs." 

"  I  cannot  believe  that,"  said  Broke  doughtily, 

"  I  am  convinced  it  is  so,  Edmund,  of  late  years  at  least. 
We  owe  that  old  man  a  debt  of  gratitude  ;  and  we  shall 
only  begin  to  realize  how  great  it  is  when  we  are  confronted 
with  the  unwillingness  of  others  to  let  us  incur  another.  It 
seems  a  ridiculous  thing  to  say,  but  I  believe  of  late  years, 
since  he  came  to  be  so  prosperous,  that  all  the  old  man  has 
done  for  us  has  been  a  labour  of  love.  I  believe  he  had  a 
whim  that  caused  him  to  take  a  pride  in  serving  us  for  our- 
selves alone.  You  may  smile,  Edmund,  but  of  late  I  have 
had  that  conclusion  forced  upon  me.     Without  his  dis- 

485 


BROKE    OF   COVENDEN 

interested  services  we  could  not  possibly  have  weathered 
the  storm  until  this  hour.  I  believe,  Edmund,  that  you 
personally  stood  in  the  relation  of  a  sort  of  hero  to  him. 
You  were  his  beau  ideal  of  the  landed  proprietor,  the  perfect 
mirror  and  pattern  of  what  he  could  have  wished  to  be  him- 
self, had  his  lot  at  the  beginning  been  cast  in  other  and 
easier  places.  And  I  am  sure  that  you  and  yours  stood  for 
the  model  on  which  he  endeavoured  to  fashion  his  son. 
Indeed,  more  than  once  did  he  confess  it." 

"  I — ah — hope  the  likeness  he  has  contrived  to  produce 
is  not  flattering." 

"  Let  us  hope  not ;  but  to  me,  I  admit,  the  whole  thing 
seems  ineffably  touching.  We  may  despise  the  old  man, 
but  I  wonder  where  we  should  have  been  without  him  all 
these  years.  And  now,  Edmund,  I  am  convinced  that  the 
only  course  left  for  us  is  to  submit  to  the  inevitable.  Coven- 
den  must  be  given  up.  To  keep  it  on  another  year  is  im- 
possible. Here,  now,  must  we  make  the  confession  to  our- 
selves that  our  ruin  is  complete.  There  is  no  quarter  to 
which  we  can  look  now  for  succour  to  tide  over  our  affairs. 
And  if  there  were,  there  would  still  be  no  hope  of  better 
times  ahead.  Edmund,  let  us  yield  before  we  are  compelled 
to  do  so  by  the  court  of  bankruptcy." 

These  were  grievous  and  bitter  words  to  Broke.  To  give 
up  Covenden,  the  home  from  time  immemorial  of  him  and 
his  and  all  that  he  held  dear,  struck  right  at  his  heart.  He 
would  sooner  have  given  up  life  itself.  But  he  knew  that 
his  wife  was  not  guilty  of  exaggeration.  Circumstances 
had  forced  him  to  recognize  that  the  stage  their  affairs  had 
reached  was  very  dire.  But  he  was  only  just  beginning  to 
realize  how  hard  they  had  been  hit  by  the  death  of  Breffit. ' 
Here  again  his  wife  was  to  be  trusted  implicitly."  She  was 
far  better  acquainted  with  their  complex  dealings  with 
Brefht  than  was  he.  But  the  plain  facts  she  had  unfolded 
of  the  benevolence  of  that  strange  old  man  galled  him 
bitterly.  He  was  the  last  person  in  the  world  consciously 
to  submit  to  deliberate  benefactions.  But  it  seemed  that 
the  whirlpool  of  events  in  whose  vortex  he  had  long  been 
caught  was  stronger,  subtler,  more  inexorable  than  even 
his  most  cherished  prejudices. 

Presently  there  came  a  day  when  the  tragic  death  of  old 
486 


MR.    BREFFIT   THE   ELDER 

BrelBt  acquired  a  new  phase  for  the  family  of  Covenden. 
The  particulars  of  it  were  embodied  in  a  small  packet  ad- 
dressed to  our  hero  from  a  firm  of  solicitors.  It  consisted 
of  two  letters  :  one,  in  a  familiar  spidery  handwriting  ad- 
dressed to  Broke  himself ;  the  other  in  a  more  clerkly  and 
official  one  to  his  only  son.  The  former  communication 
was  of  this  nature — 

*'  Dear  Mr.  Broke, — I  have  been  thinking  a  good  deal 
during  the  last  few  days  of  the  use  to  which  I  shall  devote 
the  remainder  of  my  fortune,  hoping  and  trusting  as  I  do 
that  my  end  is  now  very  near.  And  it  has  seemed  to  me 
better  to  place  it  at  the  disposal  of  one  in  whom  I  have  taken 
a  deep  interest  for  such  a  long  time,  rather  than  at  the  dis- 
posal of  a  charitable  institution  of  which  I  should  know 
little.  To  that  end  I  have  caused  my  will  to  be  altered 
in  the  favour  of  your  son  Mr.  William.  He  may,  of  course, 
not  choose  to  take  my  money  ;  but  if  the  assurance  is  likely 
to  carry  any  weight,  I  would  like  it  to  be  made  to  him  that 
his  acceptance  of  the  remainder  of  my  considerable  fortune 
will  confer  an  obligation  on  one  who  is  old  and  unhappy. 
The  testator  will  be  able  to  feel  after  all  that  his  money  is 
doing  some  real  good  to  somebody  in  the  world,  to  some- 
body in  whom  he  hopes  it  is  not  presumptuous  to  say  he  has 
long  taken  a  deep  interest ;  and  by  that  means  that  all 
his  lifetime  of  labour  has  not  been  wholly  in  vain.  If  Mr. 
William  confers  this  favour  upon  one  who  is  old  and  un- 
happy, he  will  incur  his  deep  gratitude,  although  he  will 
not  be  here  to  bestow  his  thanks  upon  him.  I  may  say  that 
the  gross  value  of  the  estate  which  I  wish  to  place  in  the 
hands  of  your  son  is  some  two  hundred  and  seventy  thou- 
sand pounds,  as  nearly  as  I  can  approximate,  less  death 
duties  and  various  small  legacies  to  servants,  and  fees  and 
expenses  of  executors.  I  remain,  dear  Mr.  Broke,  always 
yours  truly, 

"  Joseph  Breffit." 

Broke's  meditations  on  this  remarkable  document  were 
long  and  deep.  At  last  he  was  able  so  far  to  detach  him- 
self from  them  as  to  take  his  wife  into  his  confidence.  He 
gave  her  the  let  ter.     She  read  it  with  a  reeling  brain. 

487 


BROKE   OF   COVENDEN 

"  It  is  impossible  to  understand  at  first  all  that  it  means," 
she  said  in  a  feeble  voice.  "  One  has  to  read  it  a  hundred 
times  over  before  one  can  gain  a  sense  of  what  is  implied." 

"  I — ah — do  not  see  that  it  means  anything." 

"  It  assures  the  future  of  Billy." 

The  muscles  of  Broke' s  face  were  under  such  control  that 
it  remained  a  mask. 

"  It  therefore  assures  the  future  of  us  all." 

In  the  rush  of  feeling  the  letter  provoked  she  was  dis- 
playing some  excitement. 

"  It  does  nothing  of  the  kind,"  said  Broke,  intensely 
calm. 

"  Surely,  Edmund,  a  stroke  of  providence  of  this  bewil- 
dering nature  will  cause  you  to  reconsider  the  position  you 
have  taken  up.  Surely  in  the  face  of  an  event  fraught 
with  so  much  significance  for  us  all,  you  will  learn  to  con- 
done and  even  to  forget." 

"  I — ah — fail  to  see  that  the  case  has  been  altered  in  a 
single  aspect  that  is  material.     I  cannot  discuss  it." 

"  Are  there  no  limits  to  your  unreason,  Edmund  ?  Is  it 
possible  you  are  still  blind  to  the  fate  that  threatens  to 
overtake  us  ?  Is  it  possible  you  do  not  understand  what 
this  bequest  means  to  you  personally  ?  If  you  continue 
in  this  attitude  you  will  be  guilty  not  only  of  a  crime 
against  yourself,  but  against  that  you  value  more." 

The  only  reply  our  hero  made  to  these  words  was  to  walk 
out  of  the  room  abruptly. 

All  the  same,  worked  upon  in  a  high  degree  by  this  un- 
paralleled stroke  of  fortune,  Mrs.  Broke  could  not  forbear 
to  exult.  Her  old  detached  habit  of  mind  had  been  a  good 
deal  mitigated  of  late  by  a  vital  succession  of  circumstances. 
For  the  moment  she  declined  resolutely  to  look  at  the  dark 
side  of  the  picture  as  represented  by  Broke's  attitude.  It 
was  enough  that  the  immediate  sordid  exigencies  cast  upon 
them  by  the  crying  need  of  mere  pounds  and  shillings  was 
allayed  for  ever.  And  what  a  door  was  opened  !  Recon- 
ciliation was  bound  to  follow  inevitably,  if  Broke  continued 
to  be  a  human  being.  In  the  first  flush  of  her  enthusiastic 
gratitude  it  seemed  to  this  woman  and  mother  that  a 
beneficent  providence  had  deliberately  and  dramatically 
selected  the  most  effectual  means  of  saving  them  all  from 

4S8 


MR.    BREFFIT   THE    ELDER 

ruin,  and  at  the  same  time  of  restoring  to  her  two  of  the  so* 

cherished  children  of  her  heart.  For,  enthusiasm  still 
taking  its  head  in  her,  she  allowed  herself  to  foresee  tha  t  the 
Tioment  Broke  was  obliged  to  extend  his  sanction  to  the 
one  child,  he  would  also  be  obliged  to  extend  it  to  the 
other. 

under  the  spur  of  her  excitement,  Mrs.  Broke  lost  no  time 
in  going  to  the  little  cottage  on  the  hill  to  communicate 
the  wonderful  news.  But  even  as  she  entered  it  she  was 
conscious  that  the  atmosphere  in  which  the  small  place 
was  enveloped  was  in  strange  contrast  to  the  great  joy  in 
her  own  heart.  For  there  was  ever  the  pall  of  desolation 
on  that  place  now.  The  light  had  gone  out  of  the  lives 
of  the  two  lonely  women.  Their  brief  dream  of  happiness 
had  vanished  all  too  soon.  For  all  the  pure  and  free  airs  of 
the  countryside  the  young  wife  seemed  to  grow  frailer 
every  day.  The  fount  of  all  inspiration  in  her  life  was  dry  ; 
and  in  her  spirit  was  the  knowledge  that  it  would  not  be 
allowed  to  flow  again. 

Night  and  day  was  she  haunted  with  the  conviction  that 
she,  and  she  only,  had  wrought  the  ruin  of  him  who  was 
more  to  her  than  life.  All  unwittingly  had  she  done  this 
for  no  nicer  reason  than  the  gratification  of  herself. 
Whenever  that  thought  recurred  to  her — and  not  a  day, 
not  a  night  passed,  but  what  it  did — she  was  overborne  with 
self-loathing.  It  was  by  this  unconsidered  act  of  hers 
that  her  lover  had  become  a  social  leper,  outcast  for  ever 
from  his  friends.  He  had  called  down  upon  his  head  the 
implacable  displeasure  of  a  father  whose  pride  in  him  for- 
merly had  been  so  great,  wounded  his  kind  mother  to  the 
heart,  alienated  the  love  of  the  fondest  sisters  in  the  world, 
all — all  to  gratify  a  wretched  ajid  impotent  being  who 
in  the  sum  of  things  was  of  no  account.  Introspections 
of  this  kind  grew  too  indescribably  bitter.  The  impress 
of  the  cruel  claws  they  bore  could  be  coimted  daily  on  the 
delicate  flesh. 

When  Mrs.  Broke  came  to  the  cottage  that  memorable 
morning  of  the  late  November,  and  opened  the  door, 
aunt  and  niece  were  seated  at  a  table  before  a  neat  bright 
fire.  They  were  reading  a  letter  that  had  recently  arrived 
from  South  Africa^  although  both  could  have  rspeated  every 

4S9 


BROKE    OF    COVENDEN 

word  of  it  by  heart  already.  Upon  the  entrance  of  their 
benefactress  they  rose  immediately.  Mrs.  Broke  went  over 
to  the  fireside  and  kissed  her  daughter-in-law  in  a  fashion 
of  strange  tenderness. 

"  I  have  brought  great  news  for  you,  my  dear  child — oh, 
so  great !  " 

"  I — I  think  we  know  it,  ma'am,  already,"  said  Miss 
Sparrow,  with  a  certain  triumph  in  her  timidity. 

"  Surely  not,  my  dear  Miss  Sparrow.  The  lawyers  could 
hardly  have  written  to  you,  as  they  do  not  know  your 
address.  Still,  they  may  have  found  it  out ;  lawyers  are 
very  clever." 

"  Oh,  no,  ma'am,  not  the  lawyers.  Mr.  William  wrote 
to  us  himself." 

"  But  surely,  my  dear  Miss  Sparrow,  he  can  hardly  know 
of  it  yet." 

"  Oh  yes,  ma'am,  here  it  is  written  in  his  own  hand- 
writing. Is  not  this  the  great  news  that  you  mean, 
ma'am  ?  Promotion  has  come  to  him  very  quickly,  has  it 
not  ?  considering  it  is  only  about  a  month  since  he  rejoined 
the  army  as  a  private  soldier.  But  they  are  very  quick  in 
the  army.  They  soon  find  out  what  a  man  is  worth,  as  I 
have  heard  my  Uncle  Edward  say." 

The  old  woman  placed  Billy's  letter  into  the  hands  of  his 
mother  in  proud  confirmation  of  this  fact.  She  indicated 
a  pregnant  passage  with  her  finger.  It  ran  :  "  I  am  now  a 
full-blown  sergeant  in  the  Rhodesian  Light  Horse.  It  is 
not  so  bad,  is  it  ?  seeing  that  I  was  a  trooper  for  only  about 
nine  days.  If  I  go  on  at  this  rate  I  shall  be  commanding  a 
division  of  cavalry  in  a  year  !  " 

Mrs.  Broke  successfully  repressed  her  pity. 

"  The  news  I  have  brought  you  is  better  even  than 
that." 

Aunt  and  niece  looked  at  her  in  meek  bewilderment.  She 
allowed  them  time  to  enjoy  their  delicious  thrills  of  expecta- 
tion. 

"  You  don't  mean  to  say,  ma'am,  they  have  made  him 
a  troop  sergeant-major  already,"  said  the  excited  Miss 
Sparrow.  ''  Because,  if  they  have,  ma'am,  I  call  it  wonder- 
ful. My  Uncle  Edward  came  to  be  a  troop  sergeant-major 
in  the  Dragoon  Guards,  but  it  took  him  years  and  years. 

490 


MR.    BREFFIT    THE    ELDER 

It  is  very  wonderful  if  they  have,  for  all,  ma'am,  that  Mr, 

William  is  such  a  wonderful  gentleman." 

"  No,  my  dear  Miss  Sparrow,  it  is  something  even  better. 
A  letter  arrived  this  morning  to  tell  us  that  he  had  come  into 
a  great  fortune,  quite  unexpectedly.  There  is  no  reason 
for  him  now  to  stay  away  from  you  another  day.  What 
do  you  say  to  that  ?     Is  it  not  glorious  news  ?  " 

Aunt  and  niece  folded  their  hands  upon  their  bosoms 
simultaneously,  and  in  the  same  manner.  The  old  aunt 
began  to  weep  softly,  which  is  still,  perhaps,  the  only  true 
method  of  expressing  female  joy.  In  the  bright  eyes  of 
the  niece  was  a  hungry  radiance.  But  her  lips  were  com- 
pressed. 

"  Come,  my  dear  child,"  said  Mrs.  Broke,  "  I  am  sure 
you  will  rejoice.  But  I  wish  I  could  see  you  looking  a  little 
happy.  For  I  am  sure  he  will  come  back  at  once  ;  and  it 
will  not  be  necessary  for  you  ever  to  be  parted  from  one 
another  again." 

"  He  will  never  come  back,"  said  the  young  wife,  with  a 
desolate  quietude. 

"  That  is  very  wrong,  my  dear  child.  We  must  not  have 
you  talk  so.  You  are  a  little  depressed  ;  you  must  keep 
up  your  strength  as  much  as  you  can.  I  hope  you  have  drunk 
all  the  port  I  sent  you.     Some  more  is  coming  to-day." 

The  frail  child  shook  her  head. 

"  What  can  have  put  these  morbid  thoughts  into  your 
poor  head,  I  wonder  ?  You  must  banish  these  dark  fancies, 
especially  at  a  time  like  this,  when  you  require  all  the 
courage  you  can  summon." 

Again  the  young  wife  shook  her  head.  She  pressed  a 
thin  hand  on  her  side. 

"  I  have  something  here  in  my  heart,"  she  said,  "  that 
tells  me  he  will  never  return.  As  soon  as  this  terrible  war 
broke  out,  I  saw  clearly  in  what  way  God  intended  to 
punish  me." 

"  But  why  should  He  punish  you,  my  poor  child  ?  " 

"  Because  I  have  been  so  wicked  ;  because  in  trying  to 
gain  my  own  happiness  I  have  marred  that  of  others — of 
others  who  are  so  much  better  and  nobler  in  every  way 
than  I  am  myself." 

"  Who  has  put  these  foolish  and  cruel  fancies  into  youi 
491 


BROKE   OF    COVENDEN 

mind,  my  dear  one  ?  What  mischievous  nonsense  is 
this  ?  " 

"They  have  all  come  there  secretly  out  of  my  own 
thoughts.  I  was  blind  at  first,  blind  with  love ;  but  my 
eyes  are  open  now,  and  I  can  see.  I  have  ruined  my 
husband ;  and  just  to  gratify  my  own  wishes  I  have 
brought  a  horrid  sorrow  on  him  and  his.  Only  too  well 
do  I  know  what  will  be  the  end." 

"  Your  husband  is  anything  but  ruined.  He  is  now  a 
very  rich  man  indeed  ;  and  I  am  going  to  write  to  him  here 
now,  from  his  own  house,  to  tell  him  of  his  singular  good 
fortune,  to  tell  him  of  the  condition  of  his  wife,  and  that  his 
affairs  require  his  immediate  presence  in  England.  Can 
you  find  me  a  pen  and  ink  and  writing-paper  and  an  en- 
velope, Miss  Sparrow  ?  You  can  then  see  exactly  what 
I  write." 

With  a  finely  feminine  disregard  for  the  circumstances 
in  which  Billy  was  at  that  moment  placed,  Mrs.  Broke  wrote 
her  letter.  Her  commands  were  very  peremptory.  His 
absence  was  breaking  the  heart  of  his  wife,  who  had 
the  sorest  need  of  him.  She  informed  him  that  a  sum 
of  two  hundred  and  seventy  thousand  pounds  had 'been 
left  to  him  from  a  wholly  unexpected  quarter.  She  omitted, 
however,  to  put  a  name  to  the  source  whence  it  came. 
When  she  had  composed  this  production  she  read  it  aloud 
to  the  two  white- faced  women.  She  was  desirous  firmly 
to  impress  their  minds  with  the  fact  that  this  rare  piece 
of  good  fortune  had  actually  come  to  pass,  and  that  their 
days  of  repining  would  soon  be  at  an  end. 

"  There,  my  dear  child,  you  can  read  it  for  yourself. 
You  shall  stamp  the  envelope.  And  for  his  sake  and  that 
of  another  you  must  try  to  be  happy  and  of  good  faith 
until  he  comes  again  into  this  little  room.  It  means  but  a 
short  week  or  two  of  waiting.  Think  of  that — only  one 
short  week  or  two  ;  and  put  away  your  morbid  fancies." 

Alice  shook  her  head  in  despair. 

"  God  will  know  how  to  punish  me,"  was  her  reply. 

In  spite  of  herself  Mrs.  Broke  was  oppressed.  The  pre- 
possession in  the  child's  mind  haunted  her  notwithstanding 
the  powerful  revival  of  her  optimism  by  that  day's  news. 
It  had  seemed  as  though  at  last  their  luck  had  begun  to 

492 


MR.    BREFFIT   THE    ELDER 

turn.  But  the  mood  in  which  she  had  found  Alice  had 
done  much  to  dispel  the  illusion.  There  was  an  air  of 
finality  with  which  she  predicted  the  event  she  foresaw  as 
though  it  had  already  come  to  be. 

Indeed,  with  Alice  the  happy  and  significant  circum- 
stance that  had  summoned  Mrs.  Broke  to  her  did  not  weigh, 
however  Billy's  mother  might  magnify  it  and  insist  upon 
it.  The  outbreak  of  war  in  South  Africa,  coming  at  such 
a  period  in  her  life,  dominated  her  completely  with  the 
sense  of  its  inexorable  purpose.  Her  obsession  was  such 
that  to  her  it  seemed  that  millions  of  persons  had  been 
plunged  into  anguish  that  one  erring,  obscure  soul  in  a 
remote  country  cottage  might  be  visited  with  the  im- 
placable justice  that  was  her  merit. 


493 


CHAPTER  XLI 
Rien  n*est  sacre  pour  un  sapeur 

WE  come  now  to  a  week  in  December  when  not  only 
Covenden  and  its  family,  but  every  citizen  in  that 
consummate  kingdom  of  Great  Britain  and  Birmingham 
was  precipitated  into  the  vortex  of  panic. 

It  was  at  its  height  when  Mrs.  Broke  and  Lady  Bosket 
chanced  to  foregather  and  discussed  the  only  possible  topic. 

"  I  do  not  know  whether  you  have  heard,  Jane,"  said 
Lady  Bosket,  with  a  rather  complacent  air,  "  that  Charles 
is  trying  to  get  out  to  South  Africa." 

Mrs.  Broke  smiled. 

"  I  have  heard  of  it.  But  I  daresay,  Emma,  you  are  not 
aware  that  the  ambition  is  common  to  our  staid  and  sober 
Edmund." 

"  I  am  sure  it  does  Edmund  great  credit,  although  one 
would  hardly  have  suspected  it.  One  would  have  said  he 
would  have  been  quite  the  last  man  in  the  world  to  be 
capable  of  self-sacrifice." 

"  Colenso  finished  him.  He  has  told  the  War  Ofhce  and 
the  depot  that  he  will  go  out  in  any  capacity  if  only  they 
will  take  him.  But  I  am  reposing  the  fullest  confidence  in 
his  age.  What  ridiculous  creatures  men  are  !  You  see, 
Emma,  I  am  not  afraid  to  quote  you.  That  is  an  original 
aphorism  of  yours,  I  believe." 

The  authoress  purred. 

"  I  am  afraid  it  is  too  much  to  hope  that  Charles'  chance 
is  brighter,"  she  said  wistfully.  "  One  would  be  so  thank- 
ful if  he  contrived  to  dedicate  the  smallest  portion  of  his 
long  and  useless  life  to  the  service  of  his  country.     But 

494 


RIEN    N'EST   SACRE    POUR   UN   SAPEUR 

only  too  keenly  does  one  apprehend  that  even  if  the  doctors 
pass  him  on  the  score  of  age,  he  will  be  disqualified  by  a 
constitution  undermined  by  drink.  But  I  must  say,  Jane, 
that  your  tone  wounds  one  a  little.  Do  you  wish  one  to 
infer  that  you  are  anxious  that  Edmund  should  not  fulfil 
his  obligation  to  his  coimtry  ?  " 

"  Of  course  one  does  not  pretend  to  your  gifts  of 
expression,  my  dear,  but  one  could  sometimes  wish  you 
adopted  a  less  controversial  method  of  emplo5nng  them." 

"  What  do  you  mean,  Jane  ? "  said  the  authoress, 
bridling. 

Mrs.  Broke' s  smile  assumed  an  inscrutable  quality,  but 
she  did  not  reply.  Lady  Bosket,  feeling  that  it  was  impos- 
sible for  her  sister-in-law  to  make  one,  warmed  to  the 
theme.     She  said — 

"It  behoves  every  man  and  woman  in  this  country  to 
contribute  something  to  the  new  and  beautiful  idea  we 
call  Imperialism.  I  understood  you  to  say,  Jane,  that  you 
trusted  Edmund  was  too  old  to  go  to  the  Front.  How  can 
any  Englishwoman  talk  in  that  way  ?  I  hope,  Jane,  you 
are  not  a  Little  Englander." 

"  Likewise,  Emma,  you  hope  piously  that  I  am  not  a 
pro-Boer,"  said  her  demure  sister-in-law. 

"  I  do,  indeed,  Jane,  but  I  have  my  fears." 

"  I  am  afraid,  my  dear,  it  is  inevitable  that  I  should 
embody  at  least  one  of  the  cant  terms  which  are  going 
about.  But  I  ask  you,  Emma,  in  your  capacity  as  an 
arch-moulder  of  public  opinion,  do  you  not  think  it  some- 
thing of  a  pity  that  as  a  nation  we  are  so  conspicuously 
lacking  in  a  sense  of  proportion  ?  It  seems  to  me,  I  confess, 
that  that  is  where  the  national  absence  of  humour  is  to  be 
deplored.  It  safeguards  us  from  many  things,  but  it  has 
always  seemed  to  me  that  we  lose  a  little  too." 

"  Jane,  I  must  say  that  this  tone  of  flippancy  at  such  a 
crisis  in  our  national  life  is  out  of  place,  is  indeed  a  little 
shocking." 

"  From  your  impregnable  standpoint,  Emma,  I  am  bound 
to  concede  that  you  are  perfectly  right ;  from  my  own 
somewhat  more  speculative  one  the  side  of  the  question  I 
venture  to  put  before  you  is  not  wholly  indefensible." 

"  WhoUy,  Jane,  wholly,  I  can  assure  you." 
49:> 


BROKE   OF   COVENDEN 

"  I  bow,  my  dear,  of  course,  to  your  impregnability ; 
but  I  would  that  some  blessed  gift  of  heaven  could  be 
vouchsafed  to  us  by  which  we  could  be  saved  occasionally 
from  ourselves.  One  hardly  likes  to  see  the  entire  king- 
dom of  Great  Britain  and  Birmingham  surrendering  itself 
cheerfully  to  the  ridiculous." 

Mrs.  Broke's  smile  broadened  steadily,  to  the  frank  dis- 
may of  her  gifted  relation.  Broke  and  Lord  Bosket  entered 
the  room  at  this  critical  moment,  however,  and  averted 
any  further  amenities  that  were  likely  to  ensue  between 
them.  It  seemed  that  both  these  gentlemen  had  been  that 
day  to  place  their  services  at  the  disposed  of  their  country. 
A  little  ruefully  they  had  to  confess  that  their  country  had 
shown  no  disposition  to  accept  them. 

"  They  are  letting  callow  and  puny  understrappers  go 
out,"  Broke  complained,  "  but  they  will  have  none  of  a 
pair  of  grown  and  seasoned  men  like  Charles  and  myself." 

Mrs.  Broke  made  no  secret  of  her  somewhat  whimsical 
relief.  Lady  Bosket,  on  the  contrary,  proceeded  immedi- 
ately to  launch  a  crushing  diatribe  against  the  unreasonable 
and  arbitrary  behaviour  of  the  War  Office. 

"  I  certainly  cannot  pretend  to  be  surprised  about  Charles. 
It  would  be  affectation  to  say  that  I  am.  I  quite  expected 
it,  but  I  can  assure  him  that  he  has  only  himself  to  blame. 
But  you,  Edmund,  are  so  different.  It  strikes  one  as  the 
very  height  of  the  absurd  that  they  should  decline  the  ser- 
vices of  a  temperate,  healthy,  and  wholesome  person  such 
as  you  are." 

"So  it  does,"  said  Broke  bitterly.  "  They  say  we  are 
too  old." 

"  As  though  a  man  can  ever  be  too  old  to  place  his  ser- 
vices at  the  disposal  of  his  country  !  How  much  longer, 
I  would  ask,  are  we  going  to  tolerate  this  monstrous  War 
Office  ?     It  is  as  incompetent  as  our  so-called  generals." 

"  I — ah — beg  your  pardon." 

"  I  said,  Edmund,  that  the  War  Office  is  as  incompetent 
as  our  so-called  generals." 

"  I — ah — must  beg  to  differ,  Emma." 

This  concise  statement  took  our  autocratic  lady  by 
surjinse.  In  this  house,  whatever  her  opinions,  they  went 
unquestioned.     But  Broke's  opposition  was  explicit.     The 

4q6 


RIEN    N'EST   SACRfi    POUR   UN    SAPEUR 

measure  of  his  resentment  was  expressed  by  the  oddest 

sternness  in  his  tone. 

"  You  must  pardon  my  bluntness,  Emma.  I  know  I — 
ah — am  a  blunt  man — it  is — ah — natural  to  me — but  state- 
ments of  this  kind  cannot  pass  unchallenged.  At  a  time 
like  this  we  ought  to  recognize  that  the  generals  at  the — ah 
— ^Front  are  doing  their  best.  They  are  serving  the  coun- 
try to  the  best  of  their  ability." 

"  Hear,  hear,"  said  Lord  Bosket.  "  My  sentiments 
too." 

"  A  very  poor  best ;  a  very  small  ability  !  "  interjected 
Lady  Bosket  venomously.  It  was  coming  to  something 
for  Edmund  to  undertake  to  break  a  lance  with  her. 

"  Their  best  none  the  less,"  said  Broke  with  an  increasing 
sternness.  "  A  debt  of  gratitude  is  due  from  each  one  of 
us  personally  for  their  efforts  on  our  behalf." 

"  So  it  is,  damn  it,  so  it  is  !  "  said  Lord  Bosket  earnestly. 

"  They  are  not  above  criticism,  I  should  hope,"  said  his 
lady. 

"  It  is  to  our  eternal  dishonour  if  they  are  not,  allow  me 
to  say,"  said  Broke,  with  an  approach  to  vehemence. 

"  I  do  not  choose  to  have  my  intelligence  impeached  by 
yours,  Edmund,"  said  our  patriotic  lady,  suddenly  becom- 
ing very  angry  indeed. 

Broke,  however,  for  once  in  a  way,  was  ruffled.  The  very 
depths  of  disloyalty  had  been  touched.  To  call  in  question 
the  conduct  of  the  war  in  a  single  detail  was  impermissible. 
He  was  the  thorough-going  tj^e  of  person  by  whom  the 
lions  of  the  British  Army  werie  led  to  death  and  glory. 

In  the  meantime  Lord  Bosket  and  Mrs.  Broke  were 
enjoying  keenly  this  pretty  little  difference  between  our 
two  ardent  patriots. 

"  Let  'em  fight  it  out,"  said  Lord  Bosket  impartially  to 
his  sister.  "  The  missis  will  claw  him  a  bit,  but  my  money's 
on  Edmund.  He's  as  tough  as  a  nail.  He  don't  speak 
often,  but  when  he  does  he  gets  a  bull's  eye.  The  missis 
is  the  prettier  sparrer,  lighter  and  smarter,  and  can  shift 
her  feet  quicker,  but  Edmund's  got  more  stamina  and  can 
punish  better.     It's  a  thousand  to  five  on  Edmund." 

"  The  generals  are  a  disgrace.  They  have  not  the 
intelligence  of  Charles  and  the  girls.    They  are  making  us 

497  II 


BROKE    OF   COVENDEN 

the  laughing-stock  of  Europe.  Already  they  have  tar- 
nished our  glorious  traditions,  and  if  they  are  allowed  to 
go  on  they  will  ruin  the  empire." 

"It  is  a  scandal  that  people  should  be  allowed  to  say 
this  kind  of  thing  openly.  They — ah — would  not  stand  it  in 
Germany." 

Lady  Bosket's  voice  went  higher  as  Broke's  grew  deeper. 
One  was  a  scream,  the  other  a  growl.  Long  ago  had  our 
intrepid  lady  recovered  from  the  nervous  breakdown 
which  had  followed  a  certain  encounter  with  her  spouse, 
although,  to  be  sure,  she  had  never  been  quite  the  same 
woman  since.  But  having  no  physical  arguments  to  appre- 
hend in  this  instance — a  contingency  rightly  to  be  dreaded 
by  the  most  redoubtable  professors  of  the  intellectual — she 
was  able  to  be  quite  sufficiently  valiant.  She  stood  her 
ground  with  the  consciousness  of  a  sublime  purpose.  The 
occasion  was  too  grave  for  the  mouths  of  true-born  English- 
women to  be  stopped  with  dust.  She  hoped  Edmund  had 
seen  her  letter  to  the  Spectaior. 

Our  hero  was  retilly  angry.  He  felt  he  was  to  blame  for 
allowing  himself  to  be  drawn  into  argument  on  a  sacred 
topic  by  irresponsible  and  illiterate  women.  He  could  not 
think  what  the  Government  was  about  to  permit  the  circu- 
lation of  this  sort  of  blasphemy.  Our  fine  constitutional 
edifice  was  endangered  by  such  an  immoral  freedom  of 
speech.  That  was  the  worst  of  an  absolutely  free  country. 
It  had  no  control  over  the  most  vicious  forms  of  ignorance. 
There  were  numbers  of  persons  dwelling  in  the  island  at  this 
hour  whose  opinions  were  so  repugnant  that  he  keenly 
regretted  he  did  not  enjoy  the  privilege  of  being  able  to 
commit  them  to  prison  with  hard  labour. 

"  Emma,"  said  our  heated  gentleman,  "  you  talk  like  a 
pro-Boer." 

■'  You  are  one,  Edmund,"  said  our  no  less  heated  lady. 

Their  argument  having  been  conducted  to  this  successful 
phase,  Mrs.  Broke  deemed  it  time  to  intervene.  She  parted 
the  combatants  with  her  customary  smiling  gallantry. 

"  Excellent !  Excellent !  Charles,  I  think  you  will 
concur  with  me  in  the  decision  that  honours  are  easy.  A 
drawn  battle.  At  the  present  moment  the  comprehensive 
term  '  pro-Boer  '  clearly  defines  the  limits  of  our  contro- 

498 


RIEN    N'EST   SACRE    POUR    UN    SAPEUR 

versial  boundary.  One  recognizes  it  as  the  inevitable  con- 
clusion to  which  all  argument  tends.  The  most  speculative 
intellect  cannot  conceive  of  any  more  drastic  or  hnal  termi- 
nation. I  was  called  a  pro- Boer  this  morning  by  Edmund  ; 
Edmund  is  called  a  pro-Boer  this  afternoon  by  Emma  ;  and 
this  evening  I  have  a  presentiment  that  all  the  upper  ser- 
vants.at  least  in  the  Hipsley  household.will  resign  in  a  body 
because  of  Emma's  decided  pro-Boer  tendencies.  The 
universal  trend  is  in  the  direction  of  the  pro- Boer.  One 
foresees  the  time  is  at  hand  when  the  only  people  remaining  ' 
in  the  world  who  are  not  pro- Boer  are  the  Boers  themselves. 
No  etymologist  seems  able  to  grasp  what  the  term  implies 
in  all  its  comprehensiveness,  unless  it  is  merely  a  con- 
venient epithet,  a  /upon  de  parler,  as  was  the  term  Radical 
of  old,  or  Papist,  or  Jesuit,  or  Heretic,  or  Prick-eared 
Knave,  whose  sole  purpose  it  was  to  enable  every  self- 
respecting  English  citizen  to  thank  God  he  was  not  quite 
so  bad  as  his  neighbour.  From  the  beginning  we  were  a 
nation  of  Pharisees ;  the  Saxons,  the  Danes  and  the  Nor- 
mans who  have  gone  to  form  it  were  animated  with  this 
same  desireto  impress  their  moral  and  intellectual  superiority 
upon  their  contemporaries." 

Mrs.  Broke  was  able  to  separate  the  combatants ;  and 
had  to  endure  the  lot  which  befalls  those  who  undertake 
such  philanthropic  offices.  Their  forces  were  promptly 
united  against  her.  With  considerable  fierceness  and  gusto 
was  she  fallen  upon.  Broke  himself  opined  that  she  would 
do  better  to  keep  silent  if  she  could  not  speak  without 
levity.  Lady  Bosket  considered  that  her  sentiments  were 
an  outrage  upon  human  nature. 

"  So  they  are,  damn  it,  so  they  are  !  "  said  Lord  Bosket 
with  marked  earnestness. 

It  is  to  be  observed  that  this  was  the  first  and  only 
occasion  that  our  friend  was  ever  known  to  confirm  an 
opinion  expressed  by  his  wife.  Misfortune  makes  strange 
bedfellows.  During  that  harrowing  week  in  December 
when  elaborate  precautions  were  taken  to  avert  the  burn- 
ing of  Buckingham  Palace  by  a  Boer  commando  which  our 
press  assured  us  was  about  to  land  at  Dover,  the  lion  of  the 
desert  and  the  domestic  lamb  lay  down  together. 

Mrs.  Broke  was  much  too  adroit  to  permit  a  state  oi 
499 


BROKE   OF   COVENDEN 

things  that  had  welded  all  sects  and  classes  of  the  com- 
munity into  a  common  bond  of  feeling  to  pass  without 
making  an  attempt  to  utilize  it  for  her  private  ends.  A 
little  later,  when  Lord  and  Lady  Bosket  had  left,  this  emi- 
nent tactician  turned  to  her  husband. 

"  There  is  one  circumstance,  Edmund,  that  I  feel  you 
ought  to  know.     Billy  is  at  the  Front." 

Broke  had  the  lethargic  blood  of  many  generations  in 
him,  but  he  checked  his  breath  in  the  shock  of  the  dramatic 
announcement.  In  a  momentary  spasm  of  bewildered 
pain,  he  held  up  his  hand  to  stay  the  words  of  his  wife. 

"It  is  useless,  Edmund.  He  is  our  boy,  and  you  shall 
hear." 

She  moved  between  our  hero  and  the  door. 

"  You  must  not,"  he  said  in  a  hollow  tone. 

The  weary  impotence  implied  in  it  was  a  little  piteous. 
Mrs.  Broke,  so  far  from  being  arrested  by  it,  grew  more 
inexorable.  There  was  a  latent  sense  of  triumph  in  her. 
He  had  made  an  admission  that  her  shafts  were  going 
home  ;  her  succfess  put  her  in  better  courage. 

"  He  enlisted  as  a  trooper  in  the  Rhodesian  Light  Horse. 
He  has  been  promoted  already  to  the  rank  of  sergeant." 

"  Well  ?  "  gasped  our  hero  involuntarily,  in  spite  of 
himself. 

"Well?" 

They  found  themselves  standing  face  to  face,  looking  into 
the  unrelenting  eyes  of  one  another.  Both  had  refused  to 
give  back  an  inch.  The  close  lips  of  the  one,  and  the  hard, 
short  breathing  and  the  convulsive  breast  of  the  other,  who 
was  the  woman,  told  a  tale. 

"  He  is  our  boy,"  she  said  defiantly. 

Our  hero  turned  his  back  on  her  suddenly  and  com- 
pletely :  he  had  managed  to  recover  possession  of  him- 
self. 

"  Our  boy,  Edmund." 

He  walked  away  from  her  to  the  farthest  end  of  the 
large  room.  She  followed  him  up  and  took  him  by  the 
sleeve  of  his  coat.  The  courage  she  had  received  from  his 
momentary  confession  of  weakness  was  still  in  her. 

"  I  will  not  be  put  off,  Edmund.  I  insist  that  you  hear, 
and  mark  what  I  have  to  say.     Your  boy,  your  son,  is 

500 


RIEN    N'EST   SACRfi    POUR    UN    SAPEUR 

serving  his  country  in  the  manner  that  his  fathers  have 
done  before  him  these  many  a  hundred  years.  You  shall 
not  overlook  that  as  long  as  I  have  a  tongue." 

She  had  surrendered  her  time-honoured  role  of  austere 
woman  of  the  world  to  the  four  winds  of  heaven  long  ago. 
In  a  speech  of  this  tenour  the  urbane  reserves  of  one  who 
had  posed  so  long  as  a  high  priestess  of  her  distinguished 
order  were  far  to  seek.  There  was  still,  however,  enough 
of  the  old  habit  of  self-scrutiny  left  in  her  to  cause  her  to 
wince  at  the  thought  that  she  was  grovelling  before  a 
Juggernaut  whose  wheels  were  passing  and  repassing  over 
her  heart. 

"  He  is  expiating  his  offence,  Edmund,  in  the  service  of  his 
country  !  " 

Our  hero  continued  not  to  look  at  her,  nor  did  he  speak. 
The  satisfaction  was  hers  of  noting,  however,  that  if  there 
was  an  arid  vacancy  in  his  face,  there  was  a  haggard  weaii- 
ness  in  his  eyes. 


501 


CHAPTER  XLII 
Barbed  Wire 

'nr'^HAT  was  not  a  fortunate  Christmas  for  the  family 
JL  of  Covenden.  On  the  eve  of  the  annual  festival 
there  occurred  one  of  those  incidents  that  do  so  much  to 
irreconcile  us  to  the  conditions  of  tenure  of  our  mortal 
lot.  Wanton  accidents  intervene  occasionally  in  the  well- 
ordered  scheme  of  life,  for  no  better  purpose,  as  far  as  our 
so-limited  vision  will  allow  us  to  judge,  than  the  knocking 
down  of  our  preconceived  ideas  concerning  it.  We  cannot 
see  what  end  they  serve,  what  office  they  fulfil.  We  are 
made  to  bleed,  yet  know  not  the  reason  why. 

The  previous  night  and  the  early  morning  of  the  hallowed 
twenty-fourth  of  December  had  had  a  fog  and  a  white 
frost.  About  ten  o'clock,  however,  the  fog  lifted,  and  the 
sun  made  a  gracious  appearance.  With  it  came  Lord 
Bosket  in  very  cheerful  countenance,  fully  equipped  for 
the  hunting-field. 

"  Marvellous  climate  ;  two  hours  ago  I  would  ha'  laid 
a  thousand  to  five  there  would  ha'  been  no  meet  this 
mornin'.  But  you  never  know  your  luck,  do  you  ?  The 
frost  is  givin'  everywhere,  and  we  shall  be  as  right  as  rain 
by  the  time  we  are  ready  for  a  move.  But  I  see  you  little 
fillies  had  more  faith  than  I  had.  You've  got  'em  on 
already,  and  Edmund  too." 

"  Father  predicted  it  last  night,  Uncle  Charles,"  said 
Joan,  whose  ])ride  in  that  omniscient  person  was  as  in- 
veterate as  that  of  her  sisters.  "  About  nine  o'clock  he 
looked  out  and  just  caught  a  glimpse  of  the  moon  up  the 
valley,  and  he  said  it  would  be  all  right  for  this  morning." 

502 


BARBED    WIRE 

Lord  Bosket  drank  his  whisky  with  an  additional 
satisfaction. 

"  Wonderful  eye  you've  got  for  the  weather,  Edmund. 
It's  a  gift.  I  can  never  read  the  signs  like  that,  although 
I  have  lived  in  the  country  all  my  life,  the  same  as  you 
have.  I  believe  these  little  gells  have  got  it  too.  It's  a 
gift,  j ust  the  same  as  an  eye  for  the  work  of  hounds.  You've 
all  got  that.  I  beheve  any  one  of  you  little  gells  would 
hunt  the  pack  better  than  I  could  myself." 

"  Oh  no,  Uncle  Charles,"  they  cried  in  a  flattered  and 
delighted  chorus.     "  That  would  be  impossible." 

"  But  you'd  hunt  it  as  well,  what  ?  " 

"  Oh,  no.  Uncle  Charles,  we  are  sure  we  could  not." 

"  I  am  damned  if  I  am,"  said  their  uncle  proudly. 
"  There  is  not  a  hound  in  the  pack  whose  note  you  don't 
know  three  fields  off ;  and  that  you  don't  know  what  he 
can  do  better  than  I  can.  Why,  if  they  were  mute  and  you 
were  in  blinkers,  I'd  lay  a  thousand  to  five  you'd  tell 
every  one  of  'em  by  the  patter  of  their  feet." 

"  I  believe  they  would,  Charles,"  said  their  father,  with 
an  approach  to  his  old  fond  and  indulgent  laugh. 

Their  father  and  their  uncle  were  fulsome  sometimes 
when  they  got  upon  this  topic.  They  were  just  the 
type  to  appeal  to  such  a  pair  of  sportsmen.  Their 
knowledge,  judgment,  and  total  subordination  to  the 
spirit  of  the  all-absorbing  business  had  conquered  even 
the  higher  criticism,  which  is  no  more  lenient  to  their 
sex  in  the  hunting-field  than  it  is  in  literature.  They 
rode  to  hunt ;  they  did  not  hunt  to  ride.  Their  appre- 
ciation of  the  abstruse  points  of  the  longest  and  most 
trying  run  would  have  done  credit  to  the  intelligence  of 
the  keenest  and  cleverest  huntsman  who  ever  carried  the 
horn.  They  did  not  ride  to  hounds  for  the  purpose  of 
exhibiting  the  weaknesses  of  human  nature.  They  were 
as  full  of  tradition  as  the  name  they  carried.  They  had 
the  hereditary  knack,  improved  to  perfection — and  in  the 
hunting-field  there  is  such  a  thing  as  perfection — by  care, 
loving,  ever- vigilant  tutelage,  and  an  infinite  capacity  for 
taking  pains. 

The  result  was  the  grand  manner.  Just  as  the  prosaic 
art  of  writing  conceived  under  certain  skyey  influences 

503 


BROKE    OF    COVENDEN 

and  reared  under  special  conditions  may  achieve  a  noble 
simplicity  of  style,  the  conduct  of  these  sportswomen  at 
the  covert  side  had  a  similar  significance.  It  was  a  case 
of  art  concealing  art.  There,  as  always  in  their  daily 
lives,  they  were  perfectly  quiet  and  self-effacing,  but  the 
qualities  that  lay  beneath  that  unemotional  exterior  came 
out  to  a  degree  that  you  would  not  have  thought  had  an 
existence  in  such  commonplace  creatures.  They  obtained 
their  successes  so  simply  that  less  effective  members  of 
the  hunt  were  prone  to  attribute  their  knack  of  living 
with  hounds  to  luck  as  much  as  to  judgment.  Many 
persons  could  be  cited  in  support  of  this  theory  who  had 
more  style,  more  dash,  more  horses  and  better,  more 
ambition,  in  fact  more  everything,  including  a  more  visible 
determination  to  shine,  who  had  served  their  apprenticeship 
to  this  particular  country — and  a  mighty  difficult  country 
too — before  these  children  were  born,  nay,  who  had  even 
been  in  the  shires.  But  at  the  same  time  they  knew 
it  was  useless  to  pretend  that  they  took  anything  like 
the  rank  in  the  eyes  of  the  critics  as  that  taken  by  these 
unprepossessing  ladies. 

"  Broke,  they  are  classics,  and  that's  all  you  can 
say,"  was  the  verdict  of  General  Paunche,  familiarly 
known  as  "  Hell-fire  Harry,"  a  purple-faced  old  ruffian, 
who,  in  the  service  of  his  country,  had  once  commanded 
a  brigade  on  Salisbury  Plain,  but  who,  in  the  service  of 
Diana,  had  broken  most  of  the  bones  in  his  body,  including 
at  least  one  in  his  neck. 

What  wonder  was  it  that  they  provoked  the  enchant- 
ment and  envy  of  their  guardians  ?  Their  method  was 
the  perpetual  theme  of  their  father  and  their  Uncle  Charles. 
And  to  our  hero,  at  least,  it  provided  a  mighty  argument 
in  support  of  his  theory  of  the  value  of  blood.  "  I  should 
like  to  see  the  daughters  of  your  mushroom  people  with 
their  judgment  of  country,"  was  a  speech  known  to  have 
fallen  from  his  lips.  And  often  enough,  when  riding  home 
in  the  company  of  his  brother-in-law,  in  the  sore  but 
ecstatic  satisfaction  of  a  punishing  day,  had  he  said: 
"  Charles,  what  hands,  what  hands  !  They  make  a  man 
feel  like  a  bear  performing  on  horseback  in  a  circus.  They 
can  make  horses  talk.     Genius,  I  call  it." 

504 


BARBED    WIRE 

"  Damn  it,  they'd  take  a  donkey  over  Leicestershire," 
their  uncle  would  reply. 

It  may  have  been  the  approach  of  the  Christmas  season, 
that  time  of  glad  tidings  and  good  cheer,  which  rendered 
them  once  again,  forgone  brief  hour,  so  buoyant  of  spirit 
and  full  of  anticipation  of  the  pleasures  to  follow.  As  they 
prepared  that  morning  to  set  forth  it  was  almost  hke  old 
times.  Thus  far  the  winter  months  had  been  shorn  of 
many  of  their  compensations  by  the  pangs  of  bereavement  ; 
and  by  the  too-evident  change  that  was  taking  place  in  their 
father,  that  first  of  comrades  and  friends,  who,  ever  since 
they  could  recall  his  familiar  and  beloved  figure,  had  been 
the  most  cherished  possession  they  had  had  in  the  world. 
But  this  cold  raw  morning,  mellowed  a  little  by  the  tardy 
appearance  of  the  sun,  the  total  subsidence  of  the  frost, 
and  the  consequent  optimism  of  their  Uncle  Charles,  the 
gloom  was  lifted  from  their  hearts  for  the  time  being,  and 
even  their  father  seem  infected  in  a  measure  by  the  prospect 
conjured  up  before  them.  Their  fresh  laughter  was  heard 
again  for  this  one  brief  instant,  their  eyes  were  seen  to 
sparkle  to  their  uncle's  praises  ;  and  presently  they  sallied 
forth,  the  four  of  them  who  now  remained,  in  the  company 
of  their  proud  and  indulgent  guardians  to  meet  Trotman 
with  the  hounds.  Even  their  mother,  who,  as  a  rule,  took 
an  interest  so  perfunctory  in  their  exits  and  their  entrances, 
observed  this  manner  of  their  setting  out,  perhaps  a  httle 
thankfully,  so  greatly  did  it  contrast  with  the  gloomy 
quietude  that  had  accompanied  them  all  that  winter. 

Their  mother  noted  it  with  a  gleam  of  hope  ;  with  a 
gleam  of  hope  that  this  was  the  beginning  of  a  reversion 
to  something  in  the  nature  of  the  old  order  of  things,  when 
their  spirits  were  invariably  high  and  their  laughter  infec- 
tious. It  might  be  that,  in  the  elastic  fashion  of  youth,  they 
were  recovering  from  the  tragic  loss  of  Billy  and  Delia 
and  the  marriage  of  Harriet,  which  all  that  season  had 
weighed  upon  them  so  heavily. 

Strengthened  by  this  thought,  she  went  to  her  sitting 
room  and  surrendered  herself  to  a  stern  conflict  with 
Christmas  bills.  The  unequal  battle  she  had  waged  so 
long  with  importunate  tradesmen  still  went  on  ;  and  grew 
more  unequal  as  it  proceeded.     Whatever  the  devices  of 

505 


BROKE    OF   COVENDEN 

her  wit  or  the  suavity  of  her  accents,  they  now  declined 
longer  to  be  put  off.  For  years  had  she  met  them  with 
an  indomitable  tact ;  but  now  she  was  forced  to  acknow- 
ledge that  there  was  not  another  shot  left  in  her  locker. 
There  had  even  been  occasions  wh^  her  wiles  had  been 
employed  with  effect  upon  the  epistolary  style  of  lawyers  ; 
but  the  accumulation  of  threats,  fulminations,  and  stolid 
renderings  of  account  that  this  morning  she  was  called 
upon  to  survey  filled  her  with  a  sense  of  the  impotence  of 
her  struggles.  They  would  have  to  be  paid  at  once  or 
they  must  submit  to  be  sold  up. 

There  was  still,  however,  one  asset  remaining.  It  was 
the  great  fortune  that  had  come  in  such  a  providential 
fashion  to  Billy.  She  felt  she  could  count  on  his  co- 
operation in  keeping  them  afloat.  At  the  last  interview 
she  had  had  with  him  at  the  cottage,  immediately  prior  to 
his  sailing  for  South  Africa,  he  had  expressed  his  deep 
gratitude  to  her  for  the  services  she  had  rendered  to  his 
wife.  Even  as  she  recalled  this  fact  she  was  stung  by  the 
sordid  nature  of  her  thoughts,  which  in  turn  shaped  them- 
selves into  the  reflection  that  poverty  is  a  most  sordid 
and  debasing  thing.  But,  after  all,  she  could  hardly  be 
said  to  be  acting  for  herself.  Were  not  all  her  efforts  in 
the  interest  of  her  small  community,  and  therefore  on 
behalf  of  Billy  himself  ?  Thus  at  that  moment,  under  the 
spur  of  a  humiliating  need,  she  supplemented  the  letter 
she  had  recently  written  to  her  son  in  the  name  of  his  wife, 
with  a  personal  appeal  for  his  permission  to  place  some 
of  the  securities  that  now  belonged  to  him  to  the  use  of 
the  family  of  Covenden.  That  was  assuming  he  was  not 
already,  in  obedience  to  her  summons,  on  his  way  home. 
They  might  be  able  to  hold  out  if  he  returned  at  once  ; 
but  if  he  did  not,  and  if  he  failed  promptly  to  transmit 
his  authority,  they  would  be  compelled  to  sell  the  old 
place  themselves,  or  submit  to  its  being  sold  over  their 
heads. 

The  composition  of  this  letter  gave  her  great  pain.  As 
she  wrote  it,  not  only  was  she  possessed  with  the  remorseless 
nature  of  Broke's  resentment  against  his  son,  but  also  of 
his  resentment  of  the  miraculous  source  whence  his  new* 
found  wealth  had  sprung.     She  felt  the  whole  matter  to 

506 


BARBED   WIRE 

be  humiliating  and  ironical.  Therefore  she  wrote  with  a 
hurried  copiousness  that  sprang  first-hand  from  her  nervous 
shame  ;  and  hastily  enclosed  her  appeal  without  venturing 
to  read  a  line  of  it. 

In  the  afternoon  she  again  addressed  herself  to  the  dis- 
entanglement of  their  affairs.  She  scrutinised  accounts, 
examined  bankbooks,  and  summed  up  in  the  expUcit 
value  of  pounds,  shillings,  and  pence  all  their  sources  of 
revenue.  Unlet  farms  and  the  depreciation  of  agricultural 
values  told  too  sad  a  tale.  Without  the  assistance  of  poor, 
despised  old  Mr.  Breffit,  the  very  queerest  god  that  ever 
came  out  of  any  machine,  the  tottering  edifice  that  had 
braved  time  for  so  long  must  already  have  fallen  down. 
She  was  indomitable,  but  even  she  was  compelled  to  give 
in  before  such  a  marshalled  army  of  facts. 

She  was  still  poring  over  these  documents  in  the  last 
hour  that  remained  of  the  grey  winter  daylight,  when  she 
was  startled  by  the  sounds  of  a  horse  galloping  along  the 
carriage  drive.  Almost  immediately  she  caught  a  glimpse 
of  a  horseman  flying  past  the  window  of  the  room  in  which 
she  sat.  A  little  bewildered,  a  little  disconcerted  by  an 
incident  which  struck  her  as  decidedly  unusual,  she  waited 
rather  uneasily  for  its  development.  In  her  eminently 
practical  mind  there  was  no  effect,  however  odd,  that  had 
not  an  intimate  relation  to  cause.  Therefore  she  had 
already  anticipated  the  appearance  of  the  butler  when  he 
came  to  her  a  minute  later,  somewhat  in  a  hurry,  it  would 
seem,  for  one  of  his  majestic  leisure. 

"  What  is  it,  Porson  ?  " 

There  was  a  kedn  anxiety  in  her  tone. 

"  One  of  the  second  whips  is  here  and  wishes  to  see  you^ 
ma'am.     I — I  think  something  has  happened." 

"  I  will  see  him.     Will  you  please  bring  a  light  ?  " 

By  the  time  Porson  had  re-appeared  with  a  lamp  and 
the  room  had  been  invaded  by  a  breathless,  overheated  and 
muddy  presence,  Mrs.  Broke  had  a  clear  prevision  of  the 
worst,  and  was  prepared  to  support  a  recital  of  it. 

"  I  hope  it  is  not  a  fatal  accident." 

Her  decisive  air  frightened  the  bearer  of  the  news. 
That  distressed  rustic  had  ridden  in  a  fever  of  anxiety, 
and  all  the  way  had  he  laboured  under  the  stress  of  his 

507 


BROKE   OF   COVENDEN 

instructions.  He  was  to  go  as  fast  as  he  could,  yet  at 
the  same  time  he  was  to  break,  as  far  as  possible,  the  tidings 
of  misfortune  to  Mrs.  Broke.  He  had  not  revealed  a  word 
of  his  errand  as  yet,  but  it  would  seem  that  already  she 
knew  what  it  was. 

"  No,  ma'am,  not  fatal  as  yet." 

"  Which  ?  "  she  asked,  numbed  as  by  a  blow. 

"  Can't  say,  ma'am ;  they're  all  ahke  as  peas ;  can't 
tell  t'other  from  which.  But  it  is  one  of  the  Miss  Brokes, 
ma'am ;  although  Dr.  Walker  says  you  was  not  to  be 
alarmed.  But  you  was  to  have  a  bed  made  up  for  her  in 
the  libr'y  at  once,  although  you  was  to  be  sure  and  not  be 
alarmed.     They'll  be  here  in  a  bit." 

Without  waiting  to  hear  further  details,  Mrs.  Broke  rang 
for  the  housekeeper. 

"  If  you  have  any  of  those  small  hospital  beds  in  the 
house,  Mrs.  Smith,"  she  said,  "  let  one  be  brought  down. 
If  you  have  not,  please  improvise  one  with  mattresses  near 
the  fire." 

"  How  far  have  they  to  come  ?  "  she  then  asked  the 
bearer  of  the  news.  "  Do  you  think  they  will  be 
long  ?  " 

"  Well,  ma'am,  they've  got  a  good  three  mile.  It 
happened  yon  side  Raisby.  And  they'll  be  slow,  I  reckon, 
as  they  are  having  to  carry  her." 

"  Is  she  unconscious  ?  " 

"  Oh  yes,  ma'am." 

"  Broken  back  ? " 

"  No,  it's  her  'ead,  ma'am,  her  pore  'ead." 

The  bearer  of  the  tidings  burst  into  tears.  The  com- 
posure of  Mrs.  Broke  seemed  slightly  inhuman  by  com- 
parison with  his  agitation. 

"  Do  you  know  how  it  happened  ?  " 

"  Barbed  wire,  ma'am,  that  there  barbed  wire.  Dr. 
Walker  says  it's  murder.  The  pore  boss  come  down  and 
broke  'is  back,  and  they  do  say,  ma'am,  the  pore  young 
lady  pitched  on  'er  'ead,  and  the  pore  boss  afterwards 
rolled  ov-ver  'er.  I  didn't  see  it  myself,  and  I'm  thankful 
I  didn't,  but  that's  how  it  happened,  so  they  says.  It 
was  the  end  of  a  hard  day,  you  see,  ma'am,  and  I  daresay 
the  pore  boss  would  be  weakening  a  bit,  and  was  not  able 

508 


BARBED    WIRE 

to  allow  enough.  But  Dr.  Walker  says  it's  murder,  ma'am, 
and  beggin'  pardon,  so  it  is.  His  lordship's  about  out  of 
his  mind." 

The  grim  anticipations  in  the  heart  of  the  mother  had 
been  borne  out  by  this  grisly  narrative.  The  pleasure 
the  inadequately  educated  derive  from  the  recital  of  mis- 
fortune is  very  great.  Accidents  to  them,  particularly  if 
they  seem  to  have  a  chance  of  being  reckoned  as  fatal,  are 
as  the  flower  of  the  mind.  So  do  they  cherish  them,  so 
do  they  take  them  to  their  hearts,  so  radiantly  are  they 
invested  in  their  charmed  imaginations  that  even  the  most 
irrevelant  details — and  in  such  cases  there  are  only  too  many 
— are  consecrated  by  the  dark  shadow  of  death.  The 
tendency  of  the  second-whip  to  pile  horror  upon  horror, 
most  of  which  he  had  acquired  second-hand  from  equally 
fervent  raconteurs,  had  to  be  checked. 

Presently  Mrs.  Broke  went  to  superintend  the  arrange- 
ments in  the  library,  if  only  to  escape  further  unnerving 
commentary.  In  her  heart,  however,  there  was  no  hope. 
The  resolution  still  remained  to  her  of  setting  her  face 
steadfastly  against  all  species  of  self-deception,  even  at 
those  times  when  the  spirit  seems  no  longer  capable  of 
sustaining  its  burden.  A  sure  instinct,  as  powerful,  as 
irrefragable  as  the  tide  of  events  that  was  crushing  her  and 
hers  to  the  dust,  led  her  to  apprehend  the  worst.  There 
was  no  reason  to  assume  that  the  malevolence  which 
had  presided  over  their  affairs  during  the  last  twelve  months 
would  seize  an  occasion  of  this  kind  to  relent.  Cruel  as 
she  judged  the  nature  of  the  accident  to  be,  the  strain  of 
fatalism  that  misfortune  upon  misfortune's  head  had 
recently  induced  in  a  mind  formerly  so  wholesome,  formerly 
so  sane,  convinced  her  that  the  reality  would  prove  equally, 
doubly,  trebly  as  cruel.  It  was  too  plainly  identified 
with  that  which  had  been  pursuing  them.  Only  too  well 
did  she  recognize  the  Hand  whose  frequent  pleasure  it 
had  been  of  late  to  strike  out  from  the  shoulder  with  the 
fist  of  a  butcher  for  the  purpose  of  knocking  a  defenceless 
woman  to  pieces. 

The  library  was  soon  set  in  readiness  against  the  time 
of  the  arrival,  and  afterwards  there  was  nothing  for  the 
shattered  woman  but  to  await. 

509 


BROKE    OF    COVENDEN 

"  Do  you  know  which  it  is,  ma'am  ?  "  said  the  house- 
keeper. 

"  I  do  not." 

"  I  expect  it  will  be  Miss  Joan." 

"  Why,  Mrs.  Smith,  do  you  think  that  ?  " 

"If  you  happen  to  cherish  one  or  think  the  least  little 
bit  more  of  one  than  you  do  of  another,  that  is  the  one 
that  is  taken." 

"  Have  you  not  uncomfortable  theories,  Mrs.  Smith  ?  " 

Mrs.  Broke  smiled  wearily. 

"  Very,  ma'am.  I  suppose  I  have  picked  them  up  in 
an  uncomfortable  school — a  school  where  you  get  your 
knuckles  rapped  while  you  are  acquiring  them.  I  could 
never  see  why  the  moment  a  thing  takes  root  in  your  heart, 
you  should  have  it  plucked  out  again.  I  suppose  it  is  the 
self-indulgence." 

"  An  uncomfortable  philosophy,  Mrs.  Smith." 

"  Very,  ma'am  ;  but  it  is  part  and  parcel  of  the  uncom- 
fortable life  we  lead  in  this  uncomfortable  place." 

"  Do  we  not  aggravate  it  by  our  complaints  of  it  ?  " 

"  You  are  right,  ma'am,  I  daresay.  But  your  en- 
durance is  not  for  everybody.  We  are  not  all  so  strong  and 
wise.  I  hope  the  day  will  never  come,  ma'am,  when  your 
endurance  will  be  broken  down.     It  will  be  taxed  though." 

Mrs.  Smith,  a  discreet  and  sensible  person  as  a  rule, 
shook  her  head  in  the  manner  of  those  hard-eyed  seers 
who  peer  into  the  future  by  the  light  of  the  past. 

The  period  of  waiting  was  sore.  By  an  exercise  of  the 
will,  Mrs.  Broke  returned  to  her  accounts,  and  tried  to 
grapple  again  with  those  daunting  documents  that  also 
told  so  hard  a  tale.  The  more  closely  they  were  examined 
the  more  clearly  did  disaster  reveal  itself.  Ruin  was  made 
the  more  visible,  the  more  actual.  But  even  that  had 
little  power  over  her  mind  now.  Her  labours  had  become 
perfunctory.  Every  time  the  fire  creaked  in  the  grate, 
or  the  cold  wind  swung  the  branch  of  a  tree  against  the 
window,  she  lifted  her  head  to  listen.  The  suspense  made 
her  ache. 

At  last  her  alert  nervous  ears  caught  a  confusion  of 
noises  up  the  drive.  She  could  hear  the  slow  and  muffled 
sound  of  many  feet  tramping  through  the  crisp  air  of  the 

510 


BARBED    WIRE 

evening,  which  had  already  begun  to  freeze  again.  She 
could  also  detect  a  murmur  of  low  voices.  She  went  back 
to  the  library  to  bestow  a  final  glance  upon  the  preparations 
that  had  been  made,  and  then  went  out  again  into  the  hall, 
where  the  upper  servants,  several  of  whom  were  bearing 
Ughts,  had  been  already  marshalled  near  the  entrance  doors. 
The  old  butler  had  had  both  thrown  back  wide,  and  was 
standing  pale  and  white-haired  out  in  the  portico.  The 
rays  from  the  lamp  he  held  in  his  hand  made  the  tears  look 
like  quicksilver  as  they  hopped  down  his  face. 

Broke,  Lord  Bosket,  Dr.  Walker,  and  three  of  the 
girls  were  the  first  of  the  mournful  procession  to  come  into 
view  round  the  ivy  that  covered  the  angle  of  the  outer 
wall.  One  of  them,  Jane,  was  bearing  an  old  and  battered 
bowler  hat,  with  a  broken  brim.  Mrs.  Broke  went  out 
to  meet  them.     Her  brother  was  the  first  to  pass  her. 

"  Which,  Charles  ?  " 

Lord  Bosket,  hung  his  head  limply,  and  got  through 
swiftly  into  the  spacious  dimness  of  the  house.  As  old 
Porson's  lamp  fell  on  his  puffy  red  face,  his  sister  saw  that 
it  was  in  the  same  condition  of  visible  emotion  as  the 
butler's.     She  touched  her  husband  on  the  shoulder. 

"  Which,  Edmund  ?  " 

Broke,  without  glancing  at  her,  strode  quickly  into  that 
spacious  dimness  too. 

"It  is  Joan,  mother,"  said  Philippa  in  a  calm  voice. 
"  She  is  not  dead." 

"  Dead  ?  Oh,  dear  no,  nor  anything  like  it !  "  said 
Dr.  Walker  in  a  tone  of  rough  re-assurance. 

The  red-faced  old  family  practitioner,  who  would  have 
been  the  first  to  allow  that  he  knew  far  more  about  the 
art  of  riding  to  hounds  than  he  did  of  the  profession  of 
medicine,  turned  to  Mrs.  Broke  in  his  abrupt,  gruff  way 
that  yet  had  an  odd  tincture  of  kindness  in  it  which  seemed 
to  have  no  right  whatever  to  be  there,  and  amalgamated 
no  tetter  with  his  general  demeanour  than  does  a  lump 
of  sugar  in  an  iron  tonic. 

''  Dead  !  Of  course  not.  An  unlucky  Christmas  for  you, 
though.  I  hope  I  shall  not  come  across  the  man  who  put 
up  that  wire.    Ought  to  be  hanged." 

By  this  time  a  number  of  the  members  of  the  hunt  and  one 
511 


BROKE    OF    COVENDEN 

or  two  of  the  hunt  servants  had  arrived  at  the  portico  with 
a  strange  burden  in  their  midst.  It  was  a  farm  gate,  to 
which  had  been  added  a  mattress  taken  from  a  labourer's 
cottage,  and  on  the  top  of  it  was  a  scarcely  visible  something 
covered  by  coats  and  blankets.  The  doctor  superintended 
the  introduction  of  this  odd  form  of  litter  into  the  hall. 
It  called  for  the  very  nicest  care  to  get  it  through  the  various 
doorways  and  past  the  many  awkward  angles,  which  too 
palpably  had  not  been  designed  for  the  reception  of  such 
clumsy  and  unwieldy  things.  Nor  was  it  easy  to  get  it 
across  the  tiles  and  rugs  of  the  interior  itself,  or  to  avoid 
contact  with  many  articles  of  furniture.  The  doorway  of 
the  library  proved  peculiarly  difficult  to  negotiate,  and 
at  first  it  was  feared  that  the  task  of  entering  would  have 
to  be  abandoned.  In  the  end,  however,  it  was  overcome, 
and  it  said  much  for  the  skill  and  devotion  of  those 
who  conducted  the  operation  that  not  once  was  their 
burden  allowed  to  jar  against  the  all- too- narrow  wood- 
work. 

Once  inside,  the  mattress  was  lifted  bodily  on  to  the 
improvised  couch  in  front  of  the  blazing  log  fire,  the  hurdle 
was  removed,  and  the  wearisome  labours  of  these  friends 
were  at  an  end.  They  retired  to  the  hall  to  await  events. 
Mrs.  Broke  left  the  doctor  alone  in  the  library  to  make 
a  fuller  examination  than  he  had  been  able  to  do  in  the 
field.  In  the  most  ample  manner  did  she  retain  her  self- 
possession  ;  saw  to  it  that  the  considerable  muster  of 
anxious  people  who  had  flocked  into  the  house  to  obtain 
more  definite  news  had  tea  and  other  light  refreshments 
served  to  them  ;  and  personally  thanked  the  bearers  with 
her  customary  grace. 

Soon  afterwards  she  returned  to  the  doctor  in  the 
library.  He  had  concluded  his  fuller  examination,  and 
was  now  seated  at  a  table  writing  out  a  telegram. 

"  Will  you  tell  me  precisely  what  you  think  ?  " 

Dr.  Walker  took  a  huge  handkerchief  out  of  his  scarlet 
coat,  and  moi)ped  his  red  face  with  emphatic  deliberation. 

"  Got  a  dog's  chance,"  he  said  gruffly  ;  "  and  when 
you've  said  that  you've  said  all.  I  should  like  MacLach- 
lan." 

"  By  all  means." 

512 


BARBED    WIRE 

"  I  am  wiring.  Better  send  somebody  with  it  to  Cuttis- 
ham — no  office  nearer — and  tell  them  to  put  the  best  leg 
first.     Better  take  a  bicycle.     Every  minute  counts." 

Mrs.  Broke  went  immediately  to  execute  these  commands. 
When  she  returned  the  doctor  was  standing  by  the  side 
of  the  couch  looking  intently  at  the  form  "stretched  upon  it. 
By  a  supreme  effort  she  was  able  to  go  to  his  side.  The 
coat  by  which  Joan  had  been  covered  was  withdrawn  ; 
and  she  lay  extended  full  length  on  the  mattress,  with  her 
hunting  tops  protruding  below  her  habit.  The  grey 
pallor  of  her  face  was  in  deadly  contrast  to  the  appearance 
of  ruddy  health  that  was  ever  to  be  seen  upon  it.  It 
was  relieved  a  little  by  a  dark  splotch  of  dry  blood  beside 
one  of  her  ears.  Her  eyes  were  closed,  she  was  quite 
still,  and  the  only  evidence  of  life  remaining  in  her  was 
a  sound  of  loud,  hard  breathing  that  could  be  distinctly 
heard.  Her  mother  did  not  flinch,  although  in  her  veins 
was  a  strange,  numb  nausea,  as  if  she  had  suffered  that 
instant  the  heavy  stab  of  a  knife.  Standing  before  that 
perverted  image  of  what  once  had  been  her  eldest  daughter, 
she  cowered  in  an  extreme  anguish  of  the  spirit.  It  was 
a  moment  that  tears  fibres  out  of  the  heart,  and  leaves 
a  wound  in  that  centre  of  emotion  which  not  even  time, 
the  assuager  and  replenisher,  not  years,  not  forgetfulness, 
can  allow  to  heal  again. 

"  Just  struggled  back  into  what  you  might  call  con- 
sciousness," said  the  doctor. 

"  We  must  have  patience,  I  suppose  ;  I  suppose  we  can 
only  wait." 

At  the  sound  of  those  mellow,  familiar  tones,  it  almost 
seemed  as  if  the  closed  eyelids  lifted  a  little,  as  though 
sudden  light  had  fallen  upon  them. 

"  Can't  move  without  MacLachlan." 

"  How  long  must  we  wait  ?  " 

"If  everything  goes  right  he  might  catch  the  7.20  from 
Paddington.     He  should  he  here  in  four  hours." 

"  Four  hours  !  " 

The  indomitable  woman  gave  a  dismal  shiver. 

"  If  we  are  lucky.  If  we  are  not  lucky  he  may  not  be 
here  before  midnight  or  nine  o'clock  to-morrow  mom- 
ing." 

513  KK 


BROKE   OF    COVENDEN 

"  Surely  there  is  some  one  else,  some  one  more  certain, 
some  one  nearer  at  hand !  " 

"  No,  not  for  this.     It  is  MacLachlan,  or  nobody." 

"  You  told  him  of  the  urgency  ?  " 

For  the  first  time  that  evening  the  sorely  tried  woman 
was  showing  signs  of  pressure.  They  were  slight  enough, 
but  she  had  to  put  forth  the  effort  to  correct  them. 

"  Ha !  here's  Harris,"  said  the  doctor.  "  I  sent  to 
Cuttisham  for  Harris.  He  cannot  do  more  than  I  have 
done  already,  but  I  thought  I'd  have  him." 

The  door  of  the  library  had  opened  to  admit  a  benevolentji 
white-headed,  double-chinned,  heavy-watch-chained,  hand- 
rubbing  old  gentleman,  who  bore  on  every  fold  of  his  ample 
black-coated  person  the  unimpeachable  evidences  of  the 
family  physician  of  the  highest  possible  standing.  Every 
step  that  he  took  was  accompanied  by  a  purr  and  a  creak. 
He  is  said  to  be  peculiar  to  a  bygone  generation,  and  only 
to  exist  now  in  the  remote  country  places,  and  the  recondite 
pages  of  fiction.  He  owed  his  eminence  in  the  local 
estimation  not  so  much  to  the  nature  of  his  intellectual 
gifts  as  to  the  perfection  of  manner  he  bore  to  the  bedside. 
It  was  based  partly  on  a  facile  sympathy,  and  partly  on 
a  sound  working  knowledge  of  human  nature.  The  number 
of  occasions  on  which  his  name  had  made  its  appearance 
in  the  wills  of  deceased  old  ladies  of  the  neighbourhood 
was  supposed  to  have  long  precluded  his  practising  his 
calling  as  a  means  of  livelihood.  For  years  the  illusion  had 
been  cherished  that  he  followed  it  for  human  pleasure. 

He  tip- toed  across  the  carpet  and  bowed  to  Mrs.  Broke 
with  the  deferential  grace  of  a  high  priest  among  courtiers. 

"  Cchk,  cchk,"  he  said,  clicking  his  tongue  against  the 
roof  of  his  mouth.  "  Cchk,  cchk,  Walker,  what  have  we 
here  ?  " 

"  Fractured  base,"  said  Walker,  in  a  gruff  undertone. 

"  Very  sad.  Walker,  very  sad." 

Dr.  Harris  glanced  for  a  moment  at  the  face  of  the  loud- 
breathing  sufferer,  and  then,  placing  his  hands  behind  him, 
marched  with  his  colleague  to  the  extreme  end  of  the  room. 
They  were  seen  to  stand  there  together  for  some  time  with 
great  solemnity.  Their  demeanour  was  very  grave,  digni- 
fied, and  impressive.     It  was  of  a  character  to  indicate  that 

514 


BARBED    WIRE 

they  were  engaged  in  conversation  of  a  highly  erudite  and 
technical  kind.     What  passed  between  them  was  this — 

Dr.  Walker  :    "  Wired  for  MacLachlan." 

Dr.  Harris  :    "  Just  so." 

It  seemed  to  Mrs.  Broke,  however,  that  all  the  resources 
of  their  infinite  learning,  wisdom,  and  experience  were 
being  brought  to  bear  upon  the  matter,  when  in  two  words 
they  had  concurred  with  one  another.  All  there  was  left 
for  them  to  do  was  to  await  the  arrival  of  the  great  surgeon 
from  Portland  Place.  If  she  hved  until  that  time  some- 
thing might  be  attempted,  and  there  was  still  that  hope 
for  her.  But,  one  way  or  the  other,  they  had  perfectly 
open  minds,  and  were  by  no  means  prepared  to  speculate 
upon  the  chance. 

For  about  an  hour  Joan  hngered  in  a  condition  that 
might  be  called  by  the  name  of  consciousness,  and  then 
came  another  relapse  into  complete  oblivion.  Her  mother 
alone  remained  in  the  room  with  the  two  doctors.  She  felt 
the  suspense  to  be  eating  into  her  like  an  acid  ;  while 
impatience  seemed  to  be  cutting  her  mind  into  shreds. 
Everything  depended  on  the  arrival  of  the  London  surgeon ; 
but  the  tardiness  of  telegraph  wires  and  railway  trains 
could  not  summon  him  to  that  room  under  four  hours  at 
the  earliest.  The  slow  ticking  out  of  the  minutes  on  the 
clock  soon  became  intolerable.  She  turned  to  Bradshaw, 
the  guide,  the  solace,  and  the  despair  of  so  many  that 
Christmas  Eve,  to  look  out,  for  her  own  satisfaction,  the 
trains  from  London.  But  no  mitigation  was  provided  of 
that  terrible  term  of  four  interminable,  heart-teasing  hours 
at  the  earliest. 

She  began  to  chafe  at  the  inaction  of  the  two  doctors. 
Were  they  not  at  the  bedside  already  ?  It  was  as  much 
as  she  could  endure  to  reflect  that  Joan  lay  within  an  arm's 
length  of  them  wrestling  for  very  life  in  the  clutch  of  her 
extremity,  while  they  did  not  lift  a  finger  to  yield  her  aid. 
Probably  it  was  going  hard  with  her,  because  of  some 
slight  succour  that  was  withheld.  The  torment  of  such  a 
thought  was  more  than  she  could  suffer.  The  four  hours 
seemed  as  far  off  as  four  years.  The  conviction  began  to 
press  like  a  dull  load  on  her  heart  that  to  hve  through  that 
unending  period  would  be  impossible  for  her,  herself,  let 

515 


BROKE   OF   COVENDEN 

alone  for  Joan.  She  seemed  to  have  passed  through  a 
hfetime  already  since  the  telegram  was  sent,  but  it  made 
rather  less  than  forty  minutes  on  the  clock.  More  than 
three  h^urs  had  yet  to  go  ;  and  then  it  might  be  that  after 
all  he  would  miss  his  train.  Was  it  too  much  to 
ask  that  some  outward,  some  visible  effort  should  be 
put  forth  to  detain  her  dying  eldest  daughter  against  the 
time  of  the  surgeon's  coming  ? 

"  Can  you  do  nothing  ?  "  she  said  at  last,  with  a  sus- 
picion of  a  groan.  "  Surely  the  time  is  so  long  that  she 
may  die  before  the  surgeon  comes." 

"  We  can  hope,"  said  Dr.  Walker  gruffly. 

"  For  the  best,"  chimed  Dr.  Harris  with  a  creak  and  a 
purr. 

The  one  blew  his  noise  vehemently  at  this  point,  and 
the  other  folded  his  hands  on  his  stomach. 

"  Freezing  again,"  said  Dr.  Harris  presently,  stretching 
his  hands  towards  the  blazing  hearth. 

"  I  don't  know  about  that,"  said  Dr.  Walker.  "  I  think 
it  means  snow." 

As  he  spoke  he  walked  to  a  window,  drew  aside  the  heavy 
crimson  curtains,  and  looked  out  upon  the  night. 

"  Snowing  hard,"  he  said.  "  Coming  down  in  a  sheet. 
I  thought  the  tail  of  that  wind  meant  mischief.  I  have 
tasted  it  before  at  Christmas  time.  I  suppose  they  call 
it  seasonable  weather." 

"  Will  it  delay  the  trains  ?  "  said  the  mother,  breathing 
close. 

"  Possibly,"  said  the  gruff  Dr.  Walker. 

"  Possibly  not,"  said  the  suave  Dr.  Harris.  "  Possibly 
not  we  will  hope  and  trust." 

Dr.  Walker  replaced  the  curtains  and  made  his  way  back 
to  the  fire  to  warm  his  hands. 

Mrs.  Broke  was  no  longer  able  to  stay  in  the  room.  As 
she  went  out  into  the  hall,  and  was  in  the  act  of  shutting 
the  library  door  cautiously  behind  her,  she  was  met  by 
the  drawn  face  of  the  old  butler. 

"  Any  change,  ma'am  ?  "  he  said  in  a  scarcely  articulate 
voice. 

"  Practically  none." 

Broke  was  sitting  in  the  darkest  part  of  the  hall.  Some 
516 


BARBED    WIRE 

distance  from  him,  in  the  middle  of  a  lounge  before  the 
wide  hearth,  Lord  Bosket  was  seated  too.  A  profound 
silence  enwrapped  them.  Broke  was  supporting  his  chin 
with  his  hands,  and  was  staring  into  vacancy  with  a 
perplexed  look  on  his  face.  Lord  Bosket  had  his  hands 
stuck  in  his  pockets  and  his  head  lying  back  on  the  cushions, 
while  his  muddy  breeches  and  boots  were  toasting  before 
the  huge  wood  fire.  Alternately  he  seemed  to  be  shedding 
tears  and  to  be  imbibing  whisky  and  water.  The  rest  of 
the  people  had  gone  away. 

Broke  did  not  speak,  nor  did  he  Uft  his  face  from  his 
hands  at  the  approach  of  his  wife. 

"  A  damn  nice  Christmas  for  us,"  said  Lord  Bosket  with 
half  a  grunt  and  half  a  groan. 

Mrs.  Broke  made  an  effort  to  speak  reassuringly.  There 
were  no  visible  evidences  permitted  to  her,  however,  of 
her  success. 

"  I  knew  they  were  both  done  as  soon  as  I  saw  'em  go," 
said  her  brother. 

"  They  have  sent  for  a  surgeon  from  London.  If  she 
lives  till  he  comes  they  think  something  may  be  done." 

"  No  need,  my  gell,  no  need."  Lord  Bosket  began  again 
to  shed  tears  softly. 

All  this  time  Broke  had  not  moved,  and  he  did  not  appear 
to  have  listened  to  a  word  that  had  been  spoken. 

The  girls  were  hanging  about  in  a  corridor  in  the  manner 
of  their  kind.  They  were  still  hatted  and  booted  and  in 
their  habits.  Their  faces  were  scared,  but  unemotional, 
and  one  and  all  preserved  the  intense  silence  of  their 
father.  Jane  still  held  the  hat  with  the  broken  brim. 
They  seemed  to  suggest  so  many  sheep  huddling  in 
a  furrow,  and  waiting  for  the  black  storm  to  burst 
upon  their  heads  that  the  winds  have  gathered.  They 
were  hardly  enlightened  enough  by  life  to  be  aware  of  the 
precise  nature  of  the  mysterious  thing  that  was  about  to 
befall  them.  They  had  been  pushed  to  the  extreme  verge 
of  their  intelligence ;  beyond,  into  that  immense  and  awful 
void  of  the  unknown,  they  did  not  seek  to  peer. 

Once  out  of  the  room,  Mrs.  Broke  found  she  could  not 
rest  until  she  was  back  in  it.  She  returned  to  find  that 
things  had  suffered  no  change.     The  doctors  were  still 

5T7 


BROKE    OF    COVENDEN 

seated  in  front  of  the  fire  conversing  in  under  tones  exactly 
as  when  she  had  left  them.  The  slow  minutes  continued 
to  pass  without  incident,  and  with  all  the  power  of  her 
nature  she  strove  to  resign  herself  to  their  tardiness.  The 
only  respite  to  the  inaction  and  monotony  was  when  first 
one  doctor,  and  then,  perhaps  half  an  hour  afterwards,  the 
other,  rose  from  his  chair  to  take  a  glance  at  Joan.  Once 
or  twice  Mrs.  Broke  drew  aside  the  curtains  to  look  at  the 
falling  snow.  It  was  still  being  shaken  out  of  a  dense 
heaven  in  silent,  persistent  flakes.  The  ground  was  covered 
as  far  as  the  lights  from  the  bright  room  struck  out  across 
the  lawn.  The  thickness  of  the  fall,  already  considerable, 
could  be  gauged  by  the  layer  that  was  poised  on  the 
branches  of  a  tree  which  pressed  against  the  window. 

Thus  the  slow-drawn  hours  passed.  Life  remained  in 
Joan,  but  not  once  could  she  be  said  to  flicker  back  into 
an  interval  of  consciousness.  After  some  three  hours  had 
followed  the  sending  of  the  telegram,  Dr.  Walker  lingered 
in  one  of  his  excursions  to  the  side  of  the  bed,  and  by  a 
slight  movement  of  the  head  was  observed  to  summon 
Dr.  Harris.  For  some  time  they  stood  together  looking 
down  intently,  and  making  slight  inaudible  comments  to 
one  another.  Afterwards  they  resumed  their  places  by 
the  fire. 

Although  Mrs.  Broke  could  understand  nothing  of  what 
was  passing  between  them  she  hung  upon  the  inscrutable 
expression  of  their  faces.  Feverishly  as  her  eyes  traversed 
them,  she  could  not  learn. 

"  No  change  ?  " 

"  No  change,"  they  said. 

"  Do  you  think  now  she  will  live  until  the  surgeon 
comes  ?  " 

"  The  chances  favour  her  as  she  has  held  out  so  long." 

She  then  went  out  to  make  arrangements  for  the  surgeon 
to  be  met  at  Cuttisham  station.  Lord  Bosket  rose  imme- 
diately to  go  himself. 

Aftei  that  half  an  hour  passed  in  silence,  only  broken  by 
the  stertorous  breathing  of  Joan.  One  of  the  doctors  took 
out  his    watch. 

"  He  should  be  here  in  twenty-five  minutes  if  he  caught 
the  7.20,  and  the  snow  and  Christmas  traffic  have  not  de- 

5i« 


BARBED    WIRE 

layed  the  train.  I  trust  a  carriage  has  been  sent  to  meet 
it." 

"  Lord  Bosket  went  half  an  hour  ago." 

A  muffled  knock  came  to  the  hbrary  door,  and  the  old 
butler  entered  on  tip-toe  with  a  telegram  addressed  to 
Dr.  Walker. 

"  It  is  not  to  tell  us  he  cannot  come  !  "  said  the  mother, 
breaking  once  again  the  fine-drawn  thread  of  her  self- 
control.     The  next  instant  she  had  it  pieced. 

"  Arrive  Cuttisham  8.31. — MacLachlan,"  the  telegram 
said. 

"  Oh,  if  he  could  not  have  come  !  "  was  wrung  out  of  her. 

She  who  for  four  mortal  hours  had  suffered  the  torments 
of  suspense  was  now  afflicted  with  an  excitement  that  was 
Hke  a  vertigo. 

"  If  the  train  is  punctual  they  must  be  almost  here." 

She  turned  to  watch  the  movements  of  the  clock  on  the 
mantelpiece. 

She  began  to  count  the  seconds  as  they  passed.  But 
the  hands  moved  round  so  tardily  that  she  soon  found  it 
impossible  to  keep  her  attention  riveted  upon  them.  If 
only  to  forget  them  for  a  space,  she  left  the  room  again. 
She  went  out  to  the  man  who  still  cowered  mute  in  the 
darkest  part  of  the  hall,  and  who  for  four  hours  had  not 
taken  his  chin  off  his  hands. 

"  The  surgeon  will  be  here  in  a  few  minutes,  Edmund. 
Here  is  his  telegram." 

Abruptly,  but  without  speaking.  Broke  rose  to  his  feet 
in  a  rather  aimless  manner,  almost  as  if  galvanised  into 
life  by  the  slip  of  pink  paper  in  her  hand  ;  and  then  as  his 
wife  returned  to  the  library  he  followed  at  her  heels.  The 
way  in  which  he  accompanied  her  implied  that  his  con- 
sciousness of  the  act  was  no  greater  than  that  of  a  som- 
nambulist. 

When  they  entered  together  Mrs.  Broke  saw  that  both 
doctors  were  standing  side  by  side  and  bending  over  the 
couch.  One  was  holding  Joan's  wrist,  and  the  other, 
stooping  over  her,  was  watching  her  face  with  minute 
intensity. 

"  Mrs.  Broke  " — she  heard  her  name. 

In  much  the  same  manner  that  the  prisoner  at  the  bar 

519 


BROKE    OF    COVENDEN 

hears  the  foreman  of  the  jury  utter  the  sinister  word 
"  Guilty "  did  the  mother  hear  her  name  pronounced. 
Her  soul  fell  into  stupefaction,  but  its  paralysis  was  not 
extended  to  her  limbs.  She  moved  to  the  couch,  with 
Broke  following  her  mechanically,  instinctively,  like  a  dog. 
She  did  not  dare  to  look  at  the  pair  of  impassive  men  before 
her,  but  forced  herself  to  pin  her  eyes  on  the  face  of  her 
eldest  daughter.  A  scarcely  perceptible  fhcker  was 
emanating  from  it,  hardly  so  much  as  that  of  a  match  that 
falters  in  a  draught  for  the  fragment  of  a  second  to  flutter 
out.  To  know  whether  the  sealed  eyelids  twitched  or 
whether  they  were  still  was  not  possible,  for  she  saw  every- 
thing through  a  dancing  red  haze  like  harsh  midsummer 
heat  trembling  above  arid  country.  The  cold  face,  the 
colour  of  putty,  seemed  to  be  a  little  convulsed  ;  the  chest 
sank.  The  fact  slowly  spread  over  her  inadequate  senses 
that  the  loud  stertorous  breathing  was  no  longer  to  be- 
heard. 

"  Joan  !  "  and  then  a  little  eagerly  :  "  Joan,  speak  to 
me!" 

There  was  not  a  muscle  living  to  respond.  She  continued 
to  look  at  the  face  with  a  far-off  comprehension  of  the 
incomprehensible.  Presently  she  drew  her  eyes  away  dully 
to  confront  the  doctors.  They  had  turned  away.  Broke 
was  standing  by  her  side.  His  face  was  grey.  In  the 
crude  lights  of  the  lamps  and  those  of  the  ever-blazing 
hearth,  his  pale  hair  stood  forth  the  colour  of  snow.  She 
placed  her  hand  on  his  sleeve  authoritatively,  and  led  him 
away  a  few  paces  in  the  manner  that  a  mother  leads  a 
child. 

At  the  far  end  of  the  room  the  door  was  seen  to  open. 
The  old  butler's  small  hoarse  voice  could  be  heard  to  sound 
through  the  silence  like  the  croak  of  a  frog  across  a  swamp. 

"  Sir  Peter  MacLachlan." 

A  very  tall,  thin,  sandy-haired  man,  with  a  pale  red 
complexion  peaked  with  the  cold  and  empurpled  round 
the  nose,  lips,  and  ears,  emerged  briskly  out  of  the  dark- 
ness beyond  the  lamps.  For  his  reputation  he  looked 
remarkably  young.  He  was  accompanied  by  an  older, 
better  dressed,  more  prepossessing  man,  who  carried  a 
small  hand  bag. 

520 


BARBED    WIRE 

Dr.  Walker  came  forward  into  the  middle  of  the  room 
to  meat  them. 

"  We  are  much  obliged  to  you  for  coming,  Sir  Peter," 
he  said,  heartily  shaking  the  hand  of  the  youngish  man 
with  the  sandy  hair,  "  but  you  are  just  a  minute  too  late." 

"  Hum,"  said  the  great  surgeon  with  a  pronounced 
Highland  intonation,  "  then  I  suppose  we'll  be  off  again. 
We  can  catch  the  9.40  if  we  hurry." 


521 


CHAPTER  XLIII 
Ad  gloriam  Dei  et  in  memoriam  Brokeae 

ON  Christmas  morning  a  pilgrimage  was  made  to  the 
churchyard  of  Covenden  to  choose  the  last  rest- 
ing-place of  Joan.  It  was  in  keeping  with  the  new 
order  of  things,  an  indication  of  the  spirit  of  the  age,  that 
Joan  was  not  to  repose  in  the  company  of  her  forebears  in 
the  church  itself.  It  was  believed  that  she  was  the  first 
Broke  of  Covenden  dying  at  home  in  all  that  long  tally 
of  a  thousand  years  who  was  not  committed  to  the  enor- 
mous vaults  of  the  sacred  edifice.  She  was  to  lie  in  humbler 
fashion  in  the  God's  Acre  under  the  common  sky.  It  was 
in  deference  to  the  wish  of  her  mother  that  her  eldest 
daughter  should  open  a  new  era  in  the  history  of  her  name. 
It  was  a  concession  partly  to  science,  partly  to  con- 
venience, to  common-sense,  and  modern  notions. 

The  little  church  could  not  go  on  for  ever  with  fresh 
tablets  added  generation  after  generation  to  its  walls. 
Every  available  inch  had  been  crammed  with  these  memo- 
rials many  a  year  ago.  The  tombs  beneath  had  long  been 
groaning.  Warriors  and  statesmen  Brokes  were  there 
from  the  time  of  the  Plantagents.  Simple  rural  Brokes 
were  there  as  well,  obscure  and  pious  countryfolk,  whose 
claim  upon  their  race  was  embodied  in  the  fact  that  with 
an  unostentatious  excellence  they  supplied  the  links  of  its 
transmission.  But  Brokes  illustrious  and  Brokes  unknov/n 
to  song  and  story,  whose  highest  flights  of  conduct  did  not 
soar  beyond  the  amiable  Christian  virtues — every  wearer 
of  that  talismanic  name  was  secure  when  he  returned 
whence  he  came  of  his  niche  in  the  sacred  building  that, 
as  a  signal  mark  of  condescension  in  a  great  and  noble 

522 


IN    MEMORIAM    BROKEAE 

family,  was  dedicated  equally  to  the  glory  of  God  and  the 
house  of  Broke.     Ad  gloriam  Dei  ef  in  memoriam  Brokeae. 

Joan  was  to  lie  in  the  open  air  she  loved  so  well.  It  was 
not  hers  to  have  the  privilege  of  reposing  cheek  by  jowl 
with  her  mediaeval  forefather  who  lay  with  his  lady  by  his 
side,  clad  in  complete  mail  save  for  the  lifted  vizor  that 
showed  his  face,  with  his  sword  clasped  to  his  breast  in  his 
iron  fists,  and  his  crossed  feet  resting  on  his  faithful  hound, 
the  emblem  of  loyalty — effigy  of  a  Crusader  returned  from 
the  wars  in  Palestine,  image  of  a  Paladin.  It  was  not  hers 
to  lie  with  her  less  jnartial  ancestor  of  the  age  of  Elizabeth 
who  knelt  to  face  his  spouse  in  an  attitude  of  prayer,  with 
his  sixteenth-century  jerkin  cut  to  simulate  the  hauberk 
of  the  distinguished  knight  his  neighbour,  although  he 
had  no  more  warlike  accomplishment  than  a  bible  on  a 
pedestal.  Nor  was  it  hers  to  lie  with  her  more  fanciful 
kinsmen  of  the  Georgian  period  who  allowed  a  poetic 
licence  to  dictate  the  panoply  of  death ;  who  endeavoured 
therein  to  combine  the  Augustan  age  with  that  of  the 
Second  Stuart  by  placing  periwigs  upon  their  heads, 
buskins  on  their  legs,  and  as  a  last  embellishment  laid  over 
all  the  toga  of  the  ancient  Senate  House  beside  the  Tiber. 

Could  our  hero  have  consulted  his  own  wishes,  his  eldest 
daughter  would  have  lain  with  these.  To  his  mediaeval 
spirit  the  laws  of  sanitation  had  no  appeal.  In  a  matter 
of  this  sacred  magnitude  common-sense  was  for  the  service 
of  the  common  people.  He  would  have  been  the  last 
person  in  the  world  to  let  it  come  between  tradition  and 
pride  of  kindred.  He  would  have  had  science  and  the 
public  welfare  yield  with  humble  and  thankful  hearts  to 
the  honours  the  illustrious  dead  were  able  to  bestow,  by 
their  proximity,  upon  him  and  his.  But  that  morning 
the  bruised  and  broken  father  was  in  no  condition  physi- 
cally to  carry  his  point.  Mrs.  Broke,  in  the  name  of  the 
Twentieth  Century,  prevailed  over  the  Eleventh.  Our 
hero,  even  with  all  the  contained  passion  of  his  mediaevcd- 
ism,  had  not  the  tenacity  of  purpose  to  resist. 

Therefore  Broke,  his  wife,  and  the  three  children  still 
left  to  them,  set  out  on  Christmas  morning  in  the  company 
of  the  head  gardener  to  the  little  church3'ard  to  choose 
six  feet  of  sepulture.     Walking  up  the  steep  slopes,  their 

523 


BROKE    OF    COVENDEN 

road  took  them  past  the  cottage  inhabited  by  Billy's  wife 
and  her  aunt.  Already  that  morning  Mrs.  Broke  had  had 
the  consideration  to  have  them  informed  of  the  tragedy 
of  the  previous  evening,  in  the  hope  that  the  stroke  would 
be  less  severe  if  design  and  not  chance  made  it  known. 
The  door  of  the  cottage  was  shut,  the  blinds  were  pulled 
down,  and  there  were  no  signs  of  either  the  old  woman  or 
the  young. 

The  churchyard,  hanging  on  the  face  of  the  hill,  sloped 
at  an  angle  of  thirty  degrees.  The  small  church  itself 
seemed  to  rise  sheer  behind  the  gates.  This,  however, 
was  an  optical  illusion,  as  it  was  separated  from  them  by 
a  moss-grown  path  of  considerable  length.  As  the  little 
procession  slowly  ascended  it  there  could  be  heard  people 
at  worship  within  the  sacred  precincts,  uplifting  their 
voices  to  the  strains  of  "  Hark,  the  herald  angels  sing  !  " 
in  recognition  of  the  joyful  character  of  the  occasion. 

Their  way  to  the  piece  of  ground  they  were  seeking  led 
them  past  the  entrance  porch.  As  they  came  near,  the 
worm-eaten  oak  doors  slowly  opened  to  emit  the  louder 
notes  of  the  organ,  and  the  fervent  rustic  voices  in  a 
lustier  strain.     Two  women  were  passing  out  of  the  church. 

They  came  full  upon  the  sombre  pilgrims,  who 
by  this  had  reached  the  level  of  the  church  door.  One 
of  these  women  was  very  young  ;  the  other  very  old. 
Both  were  clothed  heavily  in  mourning.  They  were 
clinging  to  the  arms  of  one  another,  and  one  at  least 
appeared  to  be  overcome.  But  the  sounds  of  distress,  if 
sounds  there  were,  were  wholly  lost  in  the  joyful  clamour 
proceeding  from  the  sacred  house.  The  elder  woman 
appeared  to  be  receiving  succour  of  the  younger,  who  was 
leading  her  away.  Their  faces  struck  out  with  the  vivid 
]mllor  of  the  snow  that  pervaded  the  grass,  the  trees  and 
the  graves.  Mrs.  Broke  stopped  to  detain  them.  And 
at  the  same  moment  she  laid  her  hand  on  Broke's  coat  in  a 
decisive  manner,  with  a  quick,  unmistakable  determination 
to  detain  him  also. 

"  This  is  Billy's  wife,  Edmund,"  she  said,  making  the 
ph^-sical  attempt  to  draw  him  towards  the  child  who,  with 
horror  in  her  eyes,  was  clasping  the  arm  of  her  aunt.  But 
the  peremptorji   solicitude  of  her  tone  went  for  nothing. 

524 


IN    MEMORIAM    BROKEAE 

Broke,  without  irresolution,  without  casting  a  glance  at 
the  two  frightened  women,  firmly  disengaged  himself  from 
the  grasp  of  his  wife,  and  passed  on  round  the  angle  of  the 
porch.  With  the  same  absence  of  hesitation  his  daughters 
followed.  They  had  heard  the  words  of  their  mother,  but 
their  gaze  was  riveted  on  the  form  and  bearing  of  their 
father.     His  way  was  theirs. 

When  Broke  and  his  daughters  had  passed  out  of  sight, 
Miss  Sparrow  was  able  to  suppress  the  overwhelming 
emotion  the  music  had  called  forth.  She  bobbed  hei 
eternal  curtsey  and  found  the  courage  to  speak. 

"  The  music  was  too  dreadful,  ma'am ;  I  could  not  help 
thinking  of  you,  ma'am,  and  what  you  must  suffer  this 
Christmas  morning.  The  season  makes  it  so  much  the 
harder.     It  is  a  cruel,  cruel  Christmas  for  you  !  " 

"  I  hope  my  message  did  not  shock  you  too  much." 

"  It  was  very  kind  and  considerate  of  you,  ma'am." 

All  this  time  the  pale  child  had  been  looking  at  Mrs. 
Broke  dumbly. 

"  How  are  you,  child,  this  beautiful  wintry  morning  ? 
You  are  wise  to  get  as  much  of  the  pure  out-of-doors  air 
as  you  can." 

Alice  continued  to  look  at  her  with  unfaltering  eyes. 

"  I  have  been  thinking,"  she  said  in  a  deliberate  voice, 
"  that  perhaps  it  is  better  that  some  one  shall  be  there  to 
meet  him  in  case  I  am  not." 

"  Who,  child  ?     And  where  ?  " 

Mrs.  Broke  was  disconcerted  by  the  matter-of-fact  tone, 
and  all  the  more  because  for  the  moment  she  was  at  a  loss 
to  apprehend  the  meaning  of  the  words. 

"  I  mean  my  husband,"  said  Alice,  with  a  deliberation 
that  gave  Mrs.  Broke  a  sensation  of  faintness.  "  His  sister 
is  there  now,  and  he  is  on  the  way,  as  also  am  I." 

Mrs.  Broke  recoiled  from  the  calm  voice.  She  turned  to 
the  aunt. 

"  You  must  really  see  that  she  takes  more  fresh  air. 
Miss  Sparrow." 

"  I  would  like  to  be  buried  in  this  old  churchyard  if  I 
may,"  said  Ahce,  "  so  that  I  can  be  near  the  place  in  which 
he  was  born,  and  lived  in  longer  than  any  other.  I  may, 
please,  may  I  not  ?  " 

525 


BROKE   OF   COVENDEN 

The  mother  was  not  strong  enough  this  morning  to  be 
able  to  endure  these  morbid  fancies.  Rather  precipitately 
she  left  them  and  went  round  the  church  to  rejoin  Broke 
and  her  daughters.  Tbey  were  discovered  in  a  secluded 
comer  of  the  churchyard  where,  in  a  space  hedged  about 
by  bushy  firs,  a  spot  had  been  chosen  by  her  husband  and 
the  gardener  as  Joan's  last  resting-place. 


526 


CHAPTER  XLIV 
Mother  and  Daughter 

FROM  that  Christmas  morning  Mrs.  Broke  went  every 
day  to  the  cottage  on  the  hill.  As  the  time  of  her 
son's  wife  drew  near  she  seemed  instinctively  to  recognize, 
rather  than  by  the  processes  of  reason,  how  the  prospect 
of  a  new  generation  of  their  name  was  fraught  with  a 
strangely  vital  meaning.  She  had  not  told  Broke  as  yet. 
Indeed,  she  hardly  dared  to  do  so  in  the  face  of  his 
present  bearing.  The  tragic  death  of  Joan  had  appeared 
to  tighten  rather  than  to  relax  his  heart.  It  seemed  to 
have  become  congealed ;  it  was  as  though  the  blood  in  it 
was  changed  to  ice.  He  was  of  the  type  that  adversity 
embitters  and  renders  wanton. 

In  the  midst  of  this  new  concern  she  did  not  seek  to 
dissemble  the  fears  that  came  into  her  mind  when  it  reverted 
to  the  frail  young  wife.  Alice's  prepossession  that  something 
was  about  to  overtake  or  had  overtaken  her  husband  grew 
more  intense  as  the  days  passed.  So  powerful  did  it  become 
that  the  nearer  her  ordeal  approached  so  did  the  desire  to 
survive  it  seem  to  diminish. 

One  morning,  in  the  early  days  of  the  New  Year,  Mrs. 
Broke  was  hastily  scanning  the  newspaper  after  breakfast, 
and,  as  usual  with  them  of  late,  her  eyes  turned  first  to  the 
grimmest  of  all  the  grim  columns  in  it :  that  which  set 
forth  the  fresh  list  of  casualties  to  hand  from  the  seat  of 
war.  Many  aching  and  dim  and  sick  eyes  were  to  look 
upon  it  that  morning,  as  every  morning,  but  few  more 
shudderingly  than  those  of  this  bereaved  woman  in  the 
awful  desolation  of  her  heart.     In  a  few  incredibly  short 

527 


BROKE   OF   COVENDEN 

months  three  children  had  become  lost  to  her.  And  such 
was  the  state  of  despair  in  which  she  was  sunk  now,  that 
she,  too,  was  haunted  with  the  prepossession  that  the  sum 
of  her  misfortunes  would  not  be  complete  until  her  only 
son  was  taken  from  her  for  ever,  definitely  and  effectually. 
She  had  the  con^action — such  was  the  nadir  of  the  spirit  in 
which  she  found  herself  now — that  Circumstance  would 
leave  no  means  by  which  she  might  escape  the  consumma- 
tion of  her  sorrows.  As  long  as  her  son  was  aUve  the  hope 
remained,  however  faint  it  must  seem,  that  one  day  he 
might  be  given  back  to  her.  Circumstance,  however,  had 
merely  to  write  his  name  in  that  Hst  in  the  Standard  news- 
paper to  rob  her  of  that  remote  hope  of  consolation,  of 
mitigation,  and  put  it  out  of  her  reach  once  and  for  all. 
It  was  hardly  likely  that  Circumstance  would  deny  itself 
in  this  small  particular,  when  so  easily  it  could  gratify 
its  lust. 

It  was  hardly  likely  that  having  contrived  so  much,  it 
would  hold  its  hand  now  and  refrain  from  making  a  har- 
monious whole  of  its  recent  handiwork.  Every  morning 
did  she  turn  to  that  grisly  column  with  the  same  convic- 
tion in  her  heart.  Her  religion  was  founded  on  a  certain 
practical  sagacity,  and  it  informed  her  how  insulting  to 
the  conditions  under  which  we  enjoy  our  mortal  tenure 
was  such  a  prepossession.  But  philosophy  fails  to  touch 
us  when  we  feel  the  knife.  Besides,  when  we  are  bleeding 
to  death  we  may  grow  too  faint  to  apply  the  remedies  our 
minds  prescribe.  Far  down  in  her  heart  the  heavy  and 
repeated  blows  upon  that  centre  of  emotion  had  told  their 
tale.  There  was  there  a  gangrene,  the  outward  and  visible 
sign  of  these  ghastly  bruises.  Her  fancies  were  growing  as 
morbid  as  those  of  the  child  at  the  cottage.  She  could 
not  see  a  gleam  of  hope.  Circumstance  had  her  bound 
to  its  rack,  and  such  was  its  humour  that  it  would  seem 
every  bone  in  her  body  must  split. 

This  morning  of  mid  January  she  turned  as  usual  to 
the  death  roll  with  shuddering  eyes.  It  was  a  refinement 
of  torture  that  although  she  was  denied  the  solace  of  hope 
the  intolerable  pangs  of  suspense  were  not  on  that  account 
allayed.  Circumstance  had  the  ingenuity  of  a  Grand 
Inquisitor  in  the  bestowal  of  pain.     Yet  its  inevitability 

528 


MOTHER    AND    DAUGHTER 

did  not  soften  the  morbid  horror  of  receiving  it.  And  this 
morning  she  had  not  read  far  down  the  page  when  her  eyes 
were  arrested  by  an  item  which  at  first  seemed  to  wear  an 
air  of  distant  significance.  It  said,  "  Rhodesian  Light 
Horse,  No.  3013,  Sergeant  W.  Broek  (?),  Killed  in  action 
near  Schnadhorst's  Spruit,  January  2." 

The  number  was  the  first  thing  which  challenged  Mrs. 
Broke's  attention.  It  corresponded  precisely  with  the 
one  she  carried  in  her  brain.  From  that  she  went  on  to 
the  other  particulars  as  set  forth,  and  all  too  soon  her  last 
doubt  had  passed.  Even  the  ill-spelt  and  queried  name 
became  a  part  of  a  harmonious  whole. 

Perhaps  the  fact  that  struck  her  most  forcibly  at  first 
»i^as  a  certain  irony  underlying  the  announcement.  The 
capacity  of  the  individual  for  physical  suffering  was  already 
past  its  highest.  The  repeated  blows  under  which  she  had 
staggered  had  somewhat  numbed  her.  As  one  stricken 
with  a  mortal  disease  may  not  have  the  same  suscepti- 
bility to  pain  as  a  perfectly  normal  and  healthy  frame, 
so  Mrs.  Broke  had  already  gone  beyond  the  stage  of  her 
keenest  anguish.  Her  son  was  dead ;  but  it  was  a 
calamity  she  had  foreseen.  It  was  only  another  link 
strictly  essential  to  the  chain  of  events  that  was  winding 
about  them.  The  last  of  an  imposing  line,  enshrouded  in 
many  centuries  of  tradition,  had  perished  as  an  obscure 
common  soldier  in  a  skirmish  in  a  remote  land.  With 
Sergeant  W.  Broek  of  the  [Rhodesian  Light  Horse  their 
name  was  at  an  end. 

She  had  not  the  courage  to  go  to  her  husband  and 
tell  him  then.  There  was  the  probability  that  he  had 
been  tried  already  to  such  a  degree  that,  as  was  the  case 
with  herself,  the  power  of  realisation  had  been  rendered 
blunt,  but  at  this  moment  it  seemed  to  verge  on  the 
inhuman  to  thrust  upon  him  that  which  at  present  had  been 
withheld. 

A  little  afterwards,  when  the  nature  of  these  tidings 
assumed  a  sharper  outline  in  her  mind,  the  four  walls  of 
the  room  in  which  she  sat  began  to  contract.  It  was  as 
though  they  were  crushing  her  body  until  she  could  no 
longer  fetch  a  breath.  Her  senses  were  still  sufficiently 
normal  to  be  aware  that  it  was  the  merest  illusion  ;   that 

529  LL 


BROKE    OF    COVENDEN 

fact  notwithstanding,  however,  she  rose  and  went  to 
another  room.  In  a  httle  while  the  effect  was  repeated 
there.  A  craving  came  upon  her  to  go  out  of  doors.  There 
was  something  in  her  that  demanded  a  freer,  more  spacious 
air. 

Once  out-of-doors  she  was  invaded  by  the  necessity  of 
making  her  way  to  the  cottage  at  once.  The  future  might 
depend  entirely  upon  that.  It  was  absolutely  essential 
that  the  news  contained  in  that  morning's  newspaper 
should  not  come  to  the  notice  of  the  wife.  It  called  for 
no  common  hardihood  for  her  to  go  to  that  place  there 
and  then,  but  once  again  a  bitter  need  had  made  her 
strong. 

When  she  came  to  the  cottage  door,  Dr.  Walker  was 
departing. 

"  Ha  !  Mrs.  Broke,  I  wanted  to  see  you.  I  have  ordered 
her  to  keep  her  bed.  I  think  it  wise  ;  and  I  must  be  sent 
for  at  the  first  moment." 

"  Have  you  an  idea  when  ?  " 

"  This  evening  most  probably." 

Mrs.  Broke  then  put  a  tentative  question  to  the  doctor 
as  to  whether  he  had  seen  anything  of  a  special  interest  in 
that  morning's  newspaper.  When  he  said  he  had  not  she 
drew  the  sheet  containing  the  announcement  out  of  her 
cloak,  and  asked  him  to  read  the  line  on  which  her  finger 
was  placed. 

"  You  don't  mean  to  tell  me  that  is  our  poor  boy  ?  " 

"  Yes,"  she  said  in  a  firm  voice. 

There  was  a  moment  in  which  the  doctor  betrayed  some 
agitation.  He  then  peered  hard  at  her.  Her  fortitude 
struck  him  as  very  remarkable. 

"  I  feel  for  you  very  much,"  he  said  in  a  quavering  tone. 
"  You  have  had  a  lot  of  bad  luck  lately.  And  the  poor 
father  ?     He  must  be  dreadfully  cut  up." 

"  He  does  not  know  yet." 

"  I  think  you  will  be  wise  not  to  go  out  of  your  way  to 
let  him  know.  And,  of  course,  the  child  upstairs  must  be 
kept  in  ignorance." 

"  Indeed,  yes." 

"  Of  course  it  goes  without  saying  as  far  as  you  are  con- 
cerned.    But  the  question  arises  whether  we  shall  be  able 

53^ 


MOTHER  AND  DAUGHTER 

to  keep  her  mind  quiet.  She  appears  in  a  sense  already  to 
know." 

"  Is  it  advisable  to  tell  Miss  Sparrow  ?  " 

"  She  seems  a  sensible  old  woman.  As  for  the  nurse 
she  is  a  veritable  dragon  of  prudence,  in  whom  you  will 
find  a  great  ally." 

Mrs.  Broke  passed  into  the  cottage  to  find  this  veritable 
dragon  of  prudence  replenishing  an  india-rubber  hot  water 
bottle  from  a  kettle  on  the  hob.  She  was  an  apple-cheeked 
creature  of  the  countryside,  sufficiently  severe  of  years  and 
mien,  an  autocrat  of  the  bed-chamber,  accustomed  in  the 
pursuit  of  her  calling  to  exact  the  obedience  and  even  the 
homage  of  all  sorts  and  conditions  of  men  and  women. 

"  Good  morning,  ma'am,"  she  said  without  pausing  in 
the  operation  she  was  conducting. 

"  Good  morning.     May  I  go  upstairs  ?  " 

"  No,  ma'am,  not  this  morning.  She  is  too  excited.  I 
would  not  have  let  her  aunt  go  up,  only  she  is  so  used  to 
having  her  about  her,  that  it  might  have  unsettled  her 
more,  ma'am,  if  she  had  not  been  able  to  see  her." 

"  How  is  she  this  morning  ?  " 

"  I  am  not  pleased  with  her,  ma'am.  She  is  feverish. 
And  she  has  taken  the  notion  that  her  husband  is  dead, 
and  that  she  is  going  to  die  too ;  although,  for  that  matter, 
they  are  all  alike  in  that  respect.  But  this  notion  she  has 
taken  of  her  husband's  death  looks  like  making  it  very 
awkward  for  us.  She  seems  firmly  to  beheve  in  it,  although 
it  is  all  a  flam,  no  more  than  a  fancy." 

"  On  the  contrary,  it  happens  to  be  perfectly  true." 

The  nurse  nearly  allowed  the  hot- water  bottle  to  drop 
from  her  hand. 

"  You  don't  mean  to  say,  ma'am,  as  how  our  poor 
Mr.  William  is  dead  ?  " 

"  The  news  is  in  this  morning's  paper." 

"  I  am  sure,  ma'am,  I  feel  for  you  very  much.  It  is 
terrible  hard  for  you  and  Mr.  Broke,  and  so  soon  after 
poor  Miss  Joan.  I  am  sure,  ma'am,  I  sympathise.  And 
poor  young  lady,  say  I,  she  is  right  after  all.  We  might 
well  not  be  able  to  get  it  out  of  her  head.  But  how  could 
she  have  known  that  ?  It  is  strange,  ma'am,  the  things 
they  do  know  sometimes.     It  is  just  hke  poor  Mrs.  Pearson, 

531 


BROKE    OF    COVENDEN 

who  knew  her  husband  was  drowned  hours  before  they 
brought  home  the  body.  And  here's  her  auntie  and  I  been 
a-teUing  her  it  was  all  stuff  and  nonsense  ;  and  it  actually 
turns  out  to  be  true.  I  don't  remember  anything  more 
wonderful  than  that." 

At  this  moment  Miss  Sparrow  was  seen  descending  the 
stairs,  bearing  an  untasted  cup  of  milk  in  her  hand.  At 
the  sight  of  Mrs.  Broke  sitting  below,  she  stopped  half-way 
in  her  descent  to  drop  her  invariable  curtsey  to  her.  Custom 
had  rendered  it  so  precise  that  she  was  able  to  perform  it 
without  spilling  a  drop  of  the  milk  she  carried. 

Mrs.  Broke  greeted  the  old  woman  with  the  marked 
kindness  of  tone  she  never  failed  to  employ  to  her. 

"  I  have  bad  news  for  you,  Miss  Sparrow,"  she  said  a 
little-  while  after.wards,  "  but  I  know  you  have  great 
courage.'' 

"  I  will  try  to  have,  ma'am,"  said  the  old  woman 
nervously. 

"  Our  fears  are  realised.  My  son  has  been  killed  in 
South  Africa." 

The  old  woman  stood  perfectly  rigid,  perfectly  upright, 
with  her  bony  arms  folded  on  her  flat  bosom. 

"  Two  in  a  fortnight,  ma'am.  I  don't  know,  ma'am,  how 
you  have  the  mind  to  bear  it.  My  heart  bleeds  for 
you." 

Tliere  was  an  extraordinary  pity  in  the  tone  that  touched 
the  mother.  Such  a  solicitude  directed  to  herself  she  found 
to  be  infinitely  more  unnerving  than  an  outburst  of  woe. 

"  It  is  hard  to  say  'Thy  will  be  done,'"  said  the  old 
woman  in  a  contained  voice. 

For  some  little  time  she  seemed  either  unwilling  or 
unable  to  apply  the  bearing  the  news  must  have  on  her 
own  affairs.  But  at  last  she  broke  forth  quite  suddenly, 
in  a  voice  that  was  like  the  squeal  of  a  hare  that  has  been 
hit— 

"  My  Alice  !     My  Alice  !  "  .     • 

The  idea  appeared  to  have  struck  her  in  all  its  astonish- 
ing force  for  the  first  time. 

"  The  news  must  be  kept  from  her  at  all  costs,"  said 
Mrs.  Broke,  shaken  with  pity. 

"  Not  for  long,  ma'am,  not  for  long.      Not  for  more 

532 


MOTHER  AND  DAUGHTER 

that!  a  day  or  two  at  the  most.  Already  she  knows  in  hei 
heart." 

"  I  fear  she  does,  poor  child." 

Silence  came  between  them  again  until  the  old  woman 
spoke  once  more,  this  time  with  a  brevity  that  transfixed 
the  listener. 

"  Sentence  of  death,  ma'am,  for  Alice  !  " 

Mrs.  Broke's  conviction  of  the  truth  of  this  statement 
was  so  clear  that  she  was  not  able  to  make  an  attempt  to 
console  her. 

"  She  is  my  all,  ma'am,"  said  the  old  woman,  without 
passion  and  without  tears.  "  She  is  all  I  have  got  in  the 
world.  I  shall  not  be  able  to  bear  the  loneliness  when  she 
is  taken.  She  is  my  everything  ;  I  have  nothing  else.  It 
would  have  been  a  great  kindness  for  God  not  to  have 
left  an  old  woman  in  the  world  entirely  alone.  Still,  I 
must  not  complain  ;  it  will  not  be  for  long.  He  knows 
best,  I  suppose ;  but,  all  the  same,  it  would  have  been  a 
great  kindness  to  an  old  and  lonely  woman  had  He  taken 
her  first." 

The  old  woman  pressed  her  skinny  fingers,  coarsened 
and  blackened  with  a  Hfetime  of  toil,  against  her  flat  chest. 
Her  shrivelled  frame  remained  erect,  and  as  gaunt  in  its 
rigidness  as  the  arm  of  a  windmill.  But  the  furrows  of  her 
face,  the  colour  and  consistency  of  parchment,  did  not 
reveal  a  single  tear.  She  was  like  a  dry  stick  in  which 
a  drop  of  sap  could  not  be  expected  to  exist. 

"  It  seems  hard,"  she  went  on  with  the  same  absence  of 
passion,  "  that  the  poor  young  gentleman  should  have 
been  killed  just  when  that  great  fortune  had  come  to  him. 
If  it  had  come  to  him  a  month  or  two  sooner  Alice  would 
have  been  saved.  He  would  not  have  needed  to  leave  her 
then,  and  she  would  not  have  died.  But  '  God  moves  in 
a  mysterious  way,'  as  the  beautiful  hj'mn  tells  us.  I  am 
an  old  woman,  ma'am,  but  all  through  my  life  I  have 
noticed  that  things  are  always  falling  out  in  a  way  that  you 
cannot  understand.  A  little  bit  here  and  a  little  bit  there, 
and  all  v/ould  have  been  changed.  I  suppose  it  is  that 
God  does  not  always  go  the  straight  way  to  work,  lest  we 
should  get  to  understand  His  ways  too  well,  and  presume 
upon  the  knowledge.     Ir  the  end  it  is  best  for  us,  I  sup- 

533 


BROKE    OF    COVENDEN 

poie,  human  nature  being  weak  and  what  it  is,  but,  at  the 
time,  it  is  apt  to  seem  hard.  If  that  money  had  come  just 
one  short  month  or  two  sooner  two  beautiful  hves  would  not 
have  been  sacrificed  ;  and  you  and  me,  ma'am,  and  the 
poor  father  and  those  poor  dear  sisters  would  not  be  feeling 
that  the  light  of  their  lives  had  gone  out." 

"  It  is  to  teach  us  poor  women  the  gospel  of  patience." 

"  There  are  times,  ma'am,  when  it  almost  seems  that 
you  cannot  be  patient  any  more." 

"If  ever  women  cease  to  be  patient  there  will  perish 
the  only  hope  remaining  to  the  world,"  said  the  bruised 
and  broken  lady,  speaking  for  her  sex  with  the  mournful 
conviction  of  a  seer. 

Thereafter  a  merciful  silence  came  between  them  once 
more.  Speech  lost  its  adequacy.  They  were  traversing 
uttermost  abysses  that  could  bear  no  spoken  record.  In 
their  ways  of  life  they  diverged  as  widely  as  two  persons 
could  ;  their  lots  had  not  been  cast  in  the  same  plane  ; 
but  here  habits  and  conventions  had  no  meaning.  They 
were  a  pair  of  women  who  felt  the  pinch  of  life  in  a  per- 
fectly similar  fashion.  As  one  individual  they  moved 
through  the  same  noisome  darknesses  to  look  at  death. 
Every  yard  they  went,  the  one  holding  on  to  the  other, 
with  the  same  eyes  they  saw  the  same  things. 

In  this  nadir  of  the  spirit  in  which  they  were  lost  the 
cottage  door  was  opened,  and  a  small  female  figure  came 
upon  the  threshold.  It  entered  the  little  room  with  a 
quiet,  assured  step.  Suddenly  it  stopped,  and  a  harrowing 
irresolution  might  have  been  seen  to  possess  it.  At  the 
sight  of  one  seated  in  the  room,  the  visitor  a  woman,  a 
young  and  very  small,  in  deep  black  draperies,  not  only 
stopped  abruptly,  but  so  great  was  the  hesitation  that  had 
come  upon  her  so  suddenly,  that  a  visible  reaction  was 
produced.  Step  by  step  she  retreated  backwards  to  the 
cottage  door. 

Mrs.  Broke,  who  was  seated  with  her  face  towards  it, 
had  not  taken  her  eyes  from  those  of  the  old  woman  when 
the  first  sound  of  the  lifted  latch  had  crept  upon  her  ears. 
It  was  not  at  first  that  the  indecision  of  the  person  who  had 
entered  was  rendered  to  her  absent  senses,  which  were 
so  far  away  from  the  trite  facts  that  were  being  evolved 

534 


MOTHER  AND  DAUGHTER 

out  of  the  mundane.  No  sooner  was  she  conscious,  how- 
ever, of  an  additional  presence  in  that  httle  room,  than  she 
looked  up  to  learn  to  whom  it  might  belong.  It  belonged 
to  Delia. 

The  first  shock  of  mutual  recognition  past,  mother  and 
daughter  grew  sensible  to  find  themselves  peering  towards 
the  haggard  faces  of  one  another,  as  through  the  mists  of 
that  immense  gulf  that  had  opened  between  their  lives. 
In  a  manner  they  had  the  wonderful  sense  of  illusion  that 
befalls  the  climbers  of  the  Brocken  when  confronted  with 
the  spectre  of  themselves  upon  the  opposite  mountain. 
Mother  and  daughter  were  of  one  flesh,  but  as,  slightly 
stricken  with  horror,  they  peered  towards  one  another,  an 
immutable  law  of  time,  space,  and  physical  being  appeared 
to  hold  them  apart.  Their  likeness  one  to  the  other  was 
almost  weird,  their  flesh  and  blood  was  identical,  but  the 
sensation  afflicted  them  that  they  could  never  come  to 
stand  nearer  to  one  another  than  they  stood  now. 

This  feeling,  however,  was  only  paramount  in  Mrs. 
Broke  in  the  first  excitement  of  recognition.  It  seemed  to 
make  less  than  an  instant  in  her  brain,  although  in  point 
of  actual  time  it  must  have  made  many.  No  sooner  had 
the  pale  proud  image  of  her  youngest-born  been  cut  into 
her  senses  by  the  unerring  chisel  of  kindred,  than  she  rose 
to  her  feet  with  a  cry. 

"  Delia  !  " 

There  was  no  room  in  her  already  submerged  heart  for 
the  question  of  a  loyal  attitude  to  Broke  to  enter  it,  while 
so  much  as  one  thought  of  private  animus  was  impossible. 
All  things  were  merged  in  the  cry  of  her  maternity. 

"  Delia  !  "  she  cried,  and  ran  to  her  daughter  with  arms 
outstretched,  and  her  face  racked  and  precipitated  into 
the  veriest  unreason  of  emotion.  Running  to  her  daughter, 
she  gathered  the  un\aelding  form  against  her  bosom  and 
pressed  her  lips  fiercely  upon  her  cheek.  They  found  it  dead. 
Not  a  nerve  in  Delia  responded  to  the  call.  The  horror  of 
the  discovery  was  like  a  douche  of  cold  water  suddenly 
flung  at  the  face  of  the  WTetched  woman.  She  recoiled 
with  a  shudder  ;  her  teeth  seemed  to  clap  in  her  jaws. 

"  Delia  !  "  she  cried  for  the  third  time,  and  now  under 
the  dominion  of  terror. 

535 


BROKE   OF   COVENDEN 

Delia  did  not  jdeld  a  breath  to  her  mother's  cry.  Her 
chin  was  raised,  and  her  vivid  eyes  were  looking  steadily 
past  her  to  the  wall  beyond,  on  which  was  nothing  more 
human,  more  significant  than  a  grocer's  almanac. 

"  Delia,"  said  her  mother,  feeling  her  knees  beginning 
to  give  way.  "  Have  you  nothing  to  say  to  me  ?  Have 
you  no  mercy  to  give  me  ?  If  you  have  not,  I — I  do  not 
think  I  can  endure  it." 

Far  away  in  her  consciousness  there  was  the  echo  of 
the  speech  her  brother  had  reported  as  having  fallen  from 
the  child's  lips  in  relation  to  the  conduct  of  her  father. 
"  God  may  forgive  him,  but  I  never  will !  "  These  Brokes 
were  not  light  of  utterance.  It  had  come  upon  her  at  the 
time,  and  now  the  fact  returned  upon  her  with  a  grinding 
pang,  that  for  one  of  their  women  to  permit  herself  a 
speech  of  that  nature  implied  not  only  the  ample  concep- 
tion of  all  that  it  meant,  but  also  the  implacable  power  of 
will  to  vindicate  the  words.  As  the  bereaved  woman  re- 
coiled from  her  daughter  with  that  freshly-recalled  phrase 
in  her  heart,  the  conviction  was  driven  through 
every  artery  of  her  being  that  she  was  lost.  The  fact  that 
she  was  about  to  be  spurned  like  a  dog  by  a  child  she 
had  borne  would  in  her  present  condQtion  prove  too 
much. 

"  You  cannot  mean  it,"  she  said,  without  her  senses 
recognising  one  of  the  words  she  used.  "  You  cannot 
mean  it.  You  do  not  know  what  you  do.  You  do  not 
know  what  you  do." 

The  voice  and  face  of  the  mother  touched  no  chord  in 
the  daughter.  She  still  regarded  the  picture  of  Father 
Christmas  printed  in  five  colours  of  naif  garishness  on 
the  wall  before  her  eyes.  And  the  eyes  were  as  wide,  as  con- 
centrated, and  the  wonderfully  drawn  line  of  her  mouth 
was  as  firm  as  on  those  occasions  which  had  struck  so  much 
disconsolation  into  her  Uncle  Charles  during  the  period 
of  her  flight  to  London. 

"  I  am  not  guilty,"  said  the  mother.  "  I  had  neither 
art  nor  part  in  your  father's  act." 

Again  the  beaten  woman  hardly  knew  the  words  she 
used.  And  in  any  case  the  admission  was  wrung  out  of 
the  very  depths  of  her  faithful  spirit.     It  was  the  only 

536 


MOTHER    AND    DAUGHTER 

occasion  in  her  life  that  openly,  by  word  of  mouth,  she 
repudiated  an  action  of  her  husband's.  It  tore  her  in 
pieces  as  it  was,  but  that  statement  had  to  be  made  here 
and  now,  if  she  were  not  miserably  to  perish. 

"  You  suppressed  a  letter." 

Delia  answered  her  mother  in  the  melancholy  voice  of 
a  judge. 

"  I  confess  it.  But  that  action  was  taken  in  the  con- 
ception of  your  interests.  It  may  have  been  mistaken, 
it  may  have  been  wrong,  but  I  say  it  before  God  that  my 
motive  was  worthy.  I  cannot  bear  that  you  should  visit 
my  errors  upon  me  in  this  manner.  I  cannot  bear  it  ; 
whether  I  acted  rightly  or  wrongly,  that  you  should  judge 
me  is  more  than  I  can  endure.  Have  you  no  pity  for  the 
mother  who  has  never  had  a  thought  apart  from  the  wel- 
fare of  you  all  ?  Have  I  served  you  from  your  first  hour 
with  the  brightest  blood  of  my  heart,  that  you  should  spurn 
me  now  and  cast  me  off  like  a  dog  ?  " 

Delia  stood  as  tense  as  death  and  as  cold.  In  her  face 
there  was  not  a  spark  of  compassion  for  the  woman  she 
was  crucifying  with  her  silence. 

"  God  forgive  you  your  hard  heart,"  cried  the  felon  upon 
the  tree.     "  God  forgive  you  your  stubborn  pride  !  " 

"  You  had  no  pity  for  another,"  said  Delia,  in  a  voice 
capable  of  the  utmost  deliberation  of  selection.  "  He 
was  poor  and  he  was  defenceless.  I  do  not  think  you 
deserve  to  be  forgiven." 

The  mercilessness  of  such  words  helped  the  mother  to 
regain  her  self  control.  With  it  returned  her  power  of 
will.  An  inflexible  determination  to  prevail  was  born 
in  her.  She  must  prevail,  or  in  the  attempt  perish.  She 
pinned  her  daughter  by  the  arm  in  a  firm  grip.  Suddenly 
the  furrows  of  her  face  were  moulded  in  stern  lines. 

"  I  am  innocent.  Delia,  I  will  compel  you  to  pay  that 
justice  to  me.  I  am  innocent  ;  and  I  summon  God  to  be 
my  witness.  You  shall  not  cast  me  away.  My  acts  may 
have  been  mistaken,  but  they  were  not  criminal.  Here 
and  now  you  must,  you  shall  receive  back  into  your  heart 
the  mother  that  bore  you  !  " 

Rag  by  rag  every  stitch  of  the  clothing  of  convention 
that  our  civilization  demands  shall  be  the  garb  in  which  a 

537 


BROKE    OF   COVENDEN 

finished  woman  of  the  world  shall  inhabit  her  decency,  was 
being  torn  off  the  poor  lady.  The  woman  of  ineffable 
wisdom  and  mastery  would  be  naked  all  too  soon.  Even 
now  there  was  scarcely  a  clout  left  to  cover  her  shaking 
limbs.  Dignity,  reticence  were  gone,  fortitude  was  going. 
Naked  and  bleeding,  she  was  prostrating  herself  before  the 
feet  of  her  daughter,  who,  so  far  from  being  revolted  by  the 
spectacle,  continued  to  gaze  upon  it  with  unflinching  and 
perfectly  remorseless  eyes. 

"  You  had  no  mercy.     Do  not  ask  it  of  me." 

"  I  do,  I  do  !  I  demand  it !  You  shall  extend  mercy 
to — to  your  mother." 

She  gripped  the  unresisting  wrists  so  tightly  that  the 
print  of  her  fingers  was  marked  on  the  tender  network  of 
veins  and  white  flesh.  A  slow  and  cruel  smile  began  to 
creep  out  of  Delia,  the  peculiar  weapon  of  one  woman 
when  she  seeks  to  slay  another.  It  seemed  to  open  a 
vital  artery  in  the  victim. 

"  You  force  me  to  my  knees,"  she  gasped. 

The  last  rag  was  torn  away.  She  was  entirely  naked 
now.  But  not  for  an  instant  did  her  judge  avert  the  gaze 
that  was  devouring  her  with  its  scorn. 

"  Gentle  God,  this  is  a  Broke — this  is  not  a  human 
being  !  "  cried  the  mother. 

An  intolerable  pang  took  Delia  in  the  breast.  Without 
a  groan  she  strangled  it  and  continued  to  confront  her 
victim. 

"  I  hold  your  guilt  to  be  the  equal  of  my  father's,"  said 
the  melancholy  voice  of  justice. 

"  You  shall  not.     O,  m}^  God,  you  shall  not !  " 

The  implacable  eyes  of  the  two  women  suddenly  clashed 
together.  The  shock  of  their  meeting  was  produced  by 
a  contained  but  vivid  fury.  As  when  two  blades  of  a  steel 
of  an  equally  choice  temper  are  crossed  in  a  duel  to  the 
death,  it  is  left  to  the  mightier,  the  more  righteous  cause 
to  gain  the  mastery,  it  was  with  a  knowledge  of  the  exis- 
ence  of  such  special  conditions  that  this  unhappy  pair 
contended  now.  Both  the  wretched  women  had  this  con- 
sciousness when  their  implacable  eyes  recoiled  from  the 
^aces  of  each  other.  Right  must  turn  the  scale  ;  truth, 
justice  be  the  arbiter. 

538 


MOTHER   AND    DAUGHTER 

"  Delia,  I  challenge  you  to  prove  the  truth  of  that  wliich 
you  assert." 

"  You  suppressed  a  letter." 

"  My  motive  seemed  entirely  worthy  to  myself." 

"  You  took  me  away  that  afternoon." 

"  I  had  no  cognisance  of  what  was  about  to  happen." 

"  None  whatever,  mother  ?  You  had  no  foreknowledge 
of  any  kind  of  what  was  about  to  occur  ?  " 

"  None." 

"  You  swear  it  before  God  ?  " 

"  Before  God  I  swear  it !  " 

The  bleeding  and  naked  woman,  the  woman  of  in- 
effable wisdom  and  mastery,  of  unconquerable  will, 
covered  her  face  with  her  hands  in  a  spasm  of  very 
shame.  It  was  too  much  to  undergo  this  literal  inquisition 
at  the  hands  of  one  she  called  daughter.  But  all  their  lives 
these  children  had  never  learned  to  trust  her.  It  is  im- 
possible to  certain  natures  to  have  implicit  confidence  in 
that  which  they  cannot  apprehend.  And  she  had  never 
taken  the  trouble  to  interpret  herself  in  lucid  terms  to  these 
women  that  were  her  daughters,  in  terms  that  could  place 
all  their  doubts  concerning  her  at  rest.  Now  she  was  being 
punished  ruthlessly  for  that  omission.  Her  assurance  that 
throughout  their  lives  her  one  thought  had  been  for  their 
welfare  was  not  enough.     Delia  demanded  the  proofs. 

"  You  will  believe  me,  Delia,"  said  her  mother  in  a  voice 
that  had  long  ceased  to  be  her  own. 

The  barrier  of  a  lifelong  reserve,  of  an  unremitting 
reticence  was  broken  down. 

"  You  shall  believe  me,  Delia." 

Again  she  gripped  the  limp  wrists  with  all  the  strength 
of  which  she  was  capable,  a  strength  that  to  herself  seemed 
great  enough  to  break  them.  She  raked  wildly  the  dismal 
but  unresponsive  eyes  to  find  a  trace  of  that  mercy  of 
which  the  denial  could  only  be  interpreted  as  death.  She 
bent  her  face  towards  the  mouth  that  could  not  pity. 

"  You  will  believe  me,"  she  repeated  again  and  yet 
again,  and  forced  yet  nearer  to  her  daughter's  a  face  which 
also  had  long  ceased  to  be  a  part  of  her  identity. 

Delia  met  it  with  a  look  of  impotence.  Suddenly  on 
her  side  she  began  to  rake  it  with  the  awful  candour  of 

539 


BROKE    OF    COVENDEN 

her  gaze.  Not  a  comer  in  which  deception  might  cower 
did  she  leave  untraversed.  Her  dismal  but  mute  eyes 
explored  abysses  in  that  wonderful  face  which  never  before 
had  had  a  meaning  for  them.  The  unplumbed  depths 
they  found  in  it  were  marvellous  indeed.  Even  in  the  act 
Delia  grew  conscious  that  this  was  a  wonderful  face  into 
which  she  was  looking.  But  her  work  must  be  carried 
through.  The  grey  hairs  of  her  mother,  the  hollow  cheeks, 
the  sunken  eyes,  the  wildly  trembling  lips  were  alike 
traversed  by  an  inquisition  dreadful,  inexorable  in  its 
candour.  Not  once,  however,  did  the  victim  quail.  Her 
will  enabled  her  to  stand  there  to  support  the  vivisecting 
eyes  of  her  daughter  without  so  much  as  a  contraction  or 
dilation  of  the  pupils  of  her  own,  notwithstanding  that 
the  tribunal  of  her  spirit  had  announced  that  she  must 
share  the  guilt  of  Broke.  And  by  sheer  resolve  she 
forced  her  daughter  to  concede  that  she  had  spoken  the 
truth. 

The  breath  of  both  issued  from  their  dry  throats  in 
the  hard  and  audible  manner  of  Joan  when  she  lay  dying. 
Delia  then  proceeded  to  press  her  lips  slowly  and  gravely 
against  her  mother's  forehead. 

"  I  believe  you,  mother,"  she  said,  gathering  the  broken 
woman  in  her  arms. 


540 


CHAPTER   XLV 
A  Short  Essay  in  Anticlimax 

1"^ HEREAFTER  Mrs.Broke  and  her  recovered  daughter 
sat  a  long  hour  together  in  the  intimacy  of  a  common 
sorrow.  Deha  was  spending  a  few  days  at  Cuttisham 
with  her  husband  at  the  house  of  his  father.  That  morning 
she  had  seen  the  announcement  in  the  newspaper  of  her 
brother's  death,  and  in  the  same  way  as  her  mother  had 
been  able  more  clearly  to  identify  him  by  the  number 
attached  to  his  misspelt  name.  Before  he  went  to  South 
Africa  she  had  given  him  her  promise  that  she  would  keep 
in  touch  with  his  wife.  She  had  been  as  good  as  her  word, 
inasmuch  that  she  had  corresponded  with  her  regularly. 
And  now,  under  the  stress  of  this  tragic  event,  she  had  been 
able,  not  without  a  struggle,  to  overcome  the  repugnance 
she  had  to  setting  foot  once  more  on  her  father's  land. 
The  impulse  to  make  a  pilgrimage  to  the  one  for  whom 
her  brother  had  forfeited  everything,  even  to  the  laying 
down  of  life  itself,  was  too  great.  Her  promise  became 
a  sacred  duty  now  that  he  was  dead.  It  was  demanded 
of  her  that  for  once  she  should  waive  the  bitterness  of  her 
personal  thoughts.  At  whatever  cost,  she  must  go  to  his 
wife  and  offer  her  the  consolation  of  one  who  had  been 
very  near  to  him  and  very  dear. 

She  had  heard  of  Joan's  death  also  through  the  news- 
paper, that  harsh  and  crude  medium.  To  her  intense 
desire  to  be  present  at  her  burial  she  did  not  yield.  She 
felt  that  her  presence  at  the  graveside  might  cause  inex- 
pressible bitterness  to  every  member  of  her  family.     And 

541 


BROKE   OF   COVENDEN 

as  far  as  she  herself  was  concerned  she  was  aware  that 
the  adoption  of  such  a  course  must  mitigate  her  resent- 
ment in  some  degree.  That  final  insinuation  of  her  pride 
fortified  her  sufficiently  to  enable  her  to  stay  quietly  in 
London. 

The  barrier  once  broken  down  between  mother  and 
daughter,  their  re-established  intercourse  was  peculiarly 
frank.  Now  that  Delia  had  been  persuaded  of  her  mother's 
guiltlessness,  she  did  not  hesitate  to  establish  her  for  the 
first  time  in  her  life  in  her  confidence.  For  the  first  time 
in  her  life  she  had  dared  to  pluck  the  mask  from  off  her 
face.  The  surface  beneath  was  a  revelation.  The  awful 
being  was  flesh  and  blood,  a  woman  and  a  mother.  And 
in  any  case  there  cotild  be  no  half  measures  with  Delia  now. 
It  was  the  signal  honesty  of  her  nature  either  to  reject  or 
to  accept.  With  her  there  could  be  no  wish  father  to  the 
thought,  no  slurring  over  of  hard  facts,  no  pretences,  no 
lip  service,  no  attempts  at  deception  of  herself.  She 
had  taken  inordinate  precautions  to  satisfy  herself  that  her 
mother  was  innocent.  Once  that  fact  was  rendered  clear 
she  admitted  the  broken  woman  to  her  arms,  and  talked 
to  her  as  a  daughter  to  a  parent  fainting  under  the  relent- 
less strokes  of  fate. 

"  Do  my  sisters  know  about  Billy  ?  "  she  asked,  after 
this  re-established  intercourse  had  gone  on  some  time. 

"  No,  alas  !  nor  does  your  poor  father." 

"  They  must  be  almost  crushed,  poor  children.  How 
lonely,  how  inexpressibly  lonely  and  lost  they  must  feel 
without  Joan  ;  and  then  Hat  too  is  gone  away.  What  dear 
happy  da^'s  we  all  had  together  once.  One  short  year 
ago  we  had  yet  to  taste  the  flavour  of  life.  I  think,  mother, 
we  have  all  tasted  too  much  of  it  since.  I  at  least  am 
not  the  shy  little  timid  girl  I  was  in  those  days,  that  now 
seem  ages  and  ages  away.  I  am  very  greatly  changed, 
and  you,  too,  mother  seem  very  much  changed.  Perhaps 
it  is  that  my  eyes  are  not  the  same.  But  what  dear,  dear 
da\'s  they  were  !  Oh,  those  sweet  winter  mornings  when 
we  all  used  to  go  hunting  with  poor  dear  Uncle  Charles  !  " 

"  And  your  poor  dear  father,"  her  mother  interposed 
with  sunken  eagerness. 

"  I  remember  Joan  was  always  our  leader — dear,  high- 
542       . 


A   SHORT   ESSAY    IN    ANTICLIMAX 

hearted,  fearless  Joan.  What  a  great  soldier  she  would 
have  been  had  she  been  a  man  !  " 

"It  has  made  your  poor  father  very  aged,"  said  the  mother 
with  a  wistfulness  that  was  almost  timid.  "  Perhaps  you 
will  hardly  guess  how  tenderly  he  has  loved  you  all.  Per- 
haps you  will  hardly  guess  what  an  inveterate  pride  he 
has  had  in  you.  You  have  meant  more  to  him  than  life 
itself.  I  believe  he  would  have  laid  it  down  cheerfully 
rather  than  a  hair  of  your  heads  should  meet  with  injury. 
He  will  never  be  the  same  man  again.  I  think  it  would 
shock  you  to  see  how  white  he  is." 

Delia  did  not  respond. 

"  It  is  hard,"  said  the  mother,  with  a  gentleness  that 
was  still  timid,  "  for  us  women  sometimes  to  understand 
how  men  look  at  life.  I  think,  my  dear  one,  we  ought 
never  to  judge  them,  because  of  the  difference  in  our 
natures." 

"  They  judge  us." 

There  was  something  in  the  quality  of  the  words  that 
started  the  blood  running  cold  in  the  veins  of  the  mother. 

"  I  do  not  think  they  judge  us  harshly,"  she  said. 

"  They  have  been  known  to  commit  crimes  against  us 
in  the  name  of  justice." 

"If  that  is  so,  my  dear  one,  are  they  not  the  more  in  need 
of  our  forgiveness  ?  " 

Delia's  eyes  were  like  stone. 

"  Alas,  alas,  my  dear  one  !  " 

"  Should  they  not  first  seek  a  true  conception  of  the 
quality  of  justice,  before  they  dare  to  inflict  it  upon  us  ?  " 

"  But,  never,  never  let  us  forget  our  prerogative  of  seeking 
the  true  conception  of  forgiveness,  that  even  more  sovereign 
quality." 

"  Let  them  gain  it  for  themselves,  mother,  before  they 
turn  to  look  for  it  in  us." 

"  It  is  a  terrible  attitude,"  said  the  broken  woman.  "  I 
do  not  see  what  hope  there  can  be  for  us  wretched  humans 
as  long  as  such  ideas  obtain.  Is  this  all  the  civilization  of 
which  we  boast  amounts  to  ?  I  wince  to  hear  such  words 
from  the  lips  of  a  woman." 

"  Are  we  not  as  man  begets  us  ?  "  said  her  daughter, 
with  pain  and  despair  in  her  eyes.     "  Are  we  not  his  clay  ? 

543 


BROKE    OF    COVENDEN 

If  the  sire  is  a  wolf  must  he  look  to  have  issue  of  the  turtle- 
dove ?  If  there  is  that  within  the  spirit  of  man,  which, 
unchecked  and  even  sanctioned  by  his  heart,  mounts  up  in 
him  until  he  is  become  a  beast,  shall  not  such  a  crime 
against  our  human  nature  recoil  upon  him  ?  " 

"  Alas,  there  spoke  a  Broke." 

The  reproach  was  wrung  out  of  the  unhappy  woman. 
Too  clearly  did  she  recognize  the  seed  whence  sprang  that 
speech.  The  mediaevalist  of  the  twelfth  century  must 
not  expect  to  have  issue  endowed  with  the  higher  tenets  of 
society.  The  wanton  nature  of  his  daughter's  words 
again  caused  the  chill  to  spread  over  the  mother's  veins. 

"  How  can  there  be  a  hope  for  the  world,  my  dear  one, 
so  long  as  we  perpetuate  in  our  own  hearts  the  evil  inherent 
in  the  hearts  of  those  who  have  gone  before  ?  " 

''  Is  not  man  the  all-powerful  instrument  ?  Does  he 
not  fashion  us  according  to  his  will  ?  Does  not  his  nature 
enable  him  to  mould  us  in  his  own  image  ?  Is  it  not,  mother, 
through  him  and  only  him  that  progress  and  enlightenment 
can  come  ?  " 

"  No,  no,"  said  the  older  woman,  taking  the  hand  of  her 
daughter  in  her  own,  and  caressing  it  with  a  softness  which 
^•et  had  such  an  anxiety  in  it  that,  even  as  she  spoke,  she 
seemed  to  be  peering  up,  word  by  word,  into  the  young  face, 
pale  with  its  anguish,  to  remark  their  effect.  "  No,  no;  is 
it  not  worthier  to  believe  that  the  regeneration  of  the  world 
is  with  us  ?  Is  not  the  idea  more  endurable  that  by  our 
courage,  by  our  patience,  we  redeem  the  grosser  clay.  I  feel 
sure  that  nothing  can  be  done  for  Man  except  by  VVoman. 
Must  we  not  lead  him  before  he  can  walk  ?  And  if  nature 
has  not  designed  us  to  purify  and  to  replenish,  why  does 
she  make  us  bleed  ?  " 

"Is  it  not  what  we  have  been  saying  to  ourselves  for 
our  own  comfort,  our  own  vindication,  from  the  beginning 
of  things  ?  But  man  does  not  seem  to  grow  less  brutal. 
He  continues  to  strike  us  to  earth,  and  we  continue  to 
grovel  and  fondle  the  hand  that  makes  us  bleed.  I  cannot 
feel  that  any  humane  end  is  served,  unless  it  is  to  enable 
hiiii  to  })ractise  his  lusts  in  security." 

"  Oh,  my  poor  child  !     My  poor  child  !  " 

The  eyes  of  the  mother  filled  with  tears. 

.'S44 


A    SHORT    ESSAY    IN    ANTICLIMAX 

"  Oh,  I  know,  I  know  !     There  is  a  poison  in  my  veins.'* 

In  her  anguish  Deha  rocked  her  body  to  and  fro. 

"  Is  there  no  such  thing  as  strength  within  you,  my  dear 
one  ?  " 

"  What  strength  I  have  cannot  cleanse  my  blood.  The 
stealthy  poison  taints  me  ;  how  you  do  not  know." 

"  Perhaps  I  do,  my  lamb." 

"  No,  you  do  not.  You  cannot ;  your  blood  is  too  sweet, 
too  pure.  I  am  powerless.  The  terrible  forces  at  work 
within  me  are  too  great." 

"  Much  may  be  done  by  prayer." 

"  Alas,  I  have  no  faith  !  " 

"  You  must  never  forget  that  we  women,  we  wives  and 
mothers,  are  chained  to  the  oar  of  the  galley.  That  fact 
must  supply  our  faith,  must  teach  us  how  to  pray." 

"  Oh,  I  know  you  are  right  !  " 

"  Yes,  I  am  right.  We  are  brought  into  this  world  in  a 
state  of  subjection  and  captivity.  We  cannot  put  off  our 
fetters,  we  cannot  call  ourselves  free.  Be  sure  Nature 
understands  that.  Be  sure  she  is  never  tired  of  making 
us  understand  it." 

"  If  I  am  chained  to  the  galley  the  fetters  are  of  silk 
that  bind  me." 

"  They  are  fetters,  child,  none  the  less.  And  if  they  be 
silk  you  will  find  them  so  much  the  harder  to  break. 
Fetters  of  silk  can  only  be  tied  by  honest  and  brave  men 
round  the  wrists  of  true  and  good  women.  But  once  they 
are  on  they  are  far  more  inviolable  than  those  of  the 
clumsier,  more  arbitrary  steel.  There  is  no  evading  that 
kind  ;  they  are  the  most  tenacious  of  all." 

For  the  first  time  the  load  of  pain  seemed  to  lift  slightly 
in  Delia's  eyes.  Her  mother  was  looking  at  her  all  the 
time  with  a  weary  furtive  anxiousness.  In  an  instant  she 
seized  her  opportimity. 

"  Think  of  your  husband,"  she  said,  "  and  then  tell  me 
that  you  will  forgive  your  poor  father." 

"  No,  no,  I  cannot." 

But  there  was  a  new  vibration  in  the  voice  that  was 
unmistakable. 

"  You  would  l)e  shocked  to  know  how  broken  he  is  and 
aged" 

545  M  M 


BROKE    OF    COVENDEN 

"  You  make  your  appeal  to  the  wrong  part  of  me,  mother. 
There  would  be  a  better  hope  of  succeeding  with  my  mind 
than  my  corrupted  heart.  It  cannot  act  otherwise.  A 
thousand  times  has  it  made  the  effort,  but,  alas  !  it  is 
defiled." 

"  At  least  it  will  make  it  again  ?  " 

"  It  will  be  worse  than  futile,"  said  Delia,  with  a  shudder. 

"  Do  you  think  it  would  be  futile  if  it  were  made  at  the 
command  of  your  husband  ?  " 

"  The  hypothesis  is  not  possible." 

"  Let  us  assume  that  it  were.  If  he  made  the  personal 
request  to  you  to  go  to  your  father  and  extend  your  mercy 
to  that  broken,  aged  man,  could  you  do  it  ?  " 

This  question,  framed  with  slowly  matured  precision, 
sank  into  the  daughter.  There  was  an  instant  of  time  in 
which  a  livid  terror  passed  over  her  face.  She  then  answered 
hastily,  with  a  painful  blush — 

"  There  is  nothing  I  could  not  do  at  his  command." 

"  The  hour  will  soon  be  at  hand  when  I  shall  hold  you 
to  that,"  said  the  indomitable  woman,  with  almost  a  note 
of  triumph. 

Delia  smiled  wanly. 

"If  you  ask  that  of  him,  mother,  you  will  ask  what  I 
dare  not." 

"  Then,  my  dear  one,  I  have  formed  a  greater  estimate 
of  your  husband's  nature  than  has  his  wife." 

Delia  shuddered. 

"  If  I  were  to  suffer  a  repulse  from  him,  I  think  I  should 
die,"  she  said,  mournfully. 

"  Do  not  fear.  I  have  come  to  see  he  is  one  who  walks 
upon  the  mountains.  Had  I  not,  I  would  not  dare  to  take 
the  risk.  If  on  my  knees,  humbly,  in  the  name  of  my  white 
hairs,  in  the  name  of  my  kind,  I  crave  this  boon  of 
luni,  he  will  grant  it.  He  will  grant  it,  because  he  will  see 
that  in  the  soul  of  one  old  and  poor  woman  hes  the  recogni- 
tion of  his  quality." 

Beads  shone  hke  dew  in  the  grey  furrows  of  the  mother's 
face.     Her  daughter  closed  her  eyes. 

"  If  I  do  not  dissuade  you,  my  poor  darling  mother,"  she 
said,  in  accents  of  despair,  "  your  blood  will  be  on  my  head. 
You  cannot  know  with  whom  you  have  to  deal.     I  beseech 

546 


A   SHORT    ESSAY    IN    ANTICLIMAX 

you  not  to  incur  so  great  a  danger  :  a  repulse  would  kill 
us  both." 

"  There  will  be  no  repulse.  I  shall  not  supplicate  in 
vain.  They  who  walk  upon  the  mountains  are  too  strong, 
and  therefore  too  gentle,  to  spurn  the  weak  when  Fate 
prostrates  them  before  their  knees,  Man  can  be  ruthless, 
but  also  he  can  be  magnanimous.  He  is  the  first  work  of 
God.  This  man  will  not  deny  a  poor  old  woman.  And, 
Delia,  do  not  forget  it  is  easier  to  nobility  to  forgive  an 
injury  wrought  against  itself,  than  one  wrought  against 
the  outcast  and  impotent." 

"  It  was  a  crime  that  was  committed  against  him,"  said 
her  daughter,  with  a  relapse  into  her  former  tone. 

"  Crime  or  injury,  they  are  as  one." 

"  The  man  does  not  live  who  could  forgive  a  crime  of  that 
kind." 

The  look  of  pain  in  the  eyes  of  the  j^ounger  woman  had 
given  place  to  one  of  pity.  It  was  for  her  mother.  It 
seemed  to  that  grim  vision  that  the  extremity  of  anguish 
had  rendered  her  a  little  insane.  The  only  standard  by 
which  she  could  gauge  what  a  humane  clemency  could 
achieve  was  her  own  heart.  Had  she  stood  in  the  place 
of  her  husband,  and  that  appeal  had  been  preferred, 
she  was  conscious  that  she  would  have  repulsed  it, 
perhaps  with  contumely.  And  it  seemed  to  her  that 
one  whom  she  knew  to  be  so  much  greater  than  her- 
self must  yet,  by  reason  of  his  almost  morbid  self-centred- 
ness,  adopt  a  like  course.  Nature  would  compel  him  so  to 
act,  whatever  his  impersonal  yearnings  to  achieve  the 
magnanimous.  Her  own  were  also  of  that  sort,  but  again 
and  again  had  it  been  revealed  to  her  how  ineffectual  they 
were  when  confronted  with  those  superhuman  forces  that 
make  for  destiny. 

"  I  beseech  you,  mother,  I  implore  you  to  be  forewarned. 
Your  request,  should  3'ou  dare  to  make  it,  must  fail,  and, 
failing,  must  recoil  upon  you.  Be  forewarned  by  one  who 
knows  so  well  with  whom  and  what  you  will  have  to  con- 
tend." 

Delia  spoke  with  the  sombre  fervour  of  the  prophet. 
But  the  wildness  of  her  solicitude  was  met  with  the  ghost 
of  that  old  indomitable  smile. 

547 


BROKE    OF   COVENDEN 

"  I  do  not  fear,  my  dear  one,"  said  her  mother ;  and  now 
something  of  the  old  calm  sauvity  of  voice  seemed  to  be 
returning,  as  in  the  very  throes  of  death  a  certain  placidity 
of  the  spirit  may  arise.  "  I  do  not  fear.  And  when  my 
request  has  been  made  and  has  been  granted  to  me  I  shall 
turn  to  you  to  fulfil  your  part  as  truly  as  your  husband  will 
have  fulfilled  his." 

Delia  was  seen  to  clasp  her  bosom,  while  her  eyes  were 
darkening.  The  beads  still  continued  to  shine  in  the  Uvid 
furrows  of  the  mother's  face,  but  there  could  be  no  misin- 
terpretation of  the  expression  that  was  come  upon  it. 

"  I  do  not  fear,"  it  said,  as  staunchly  as  could  her  lips. 


54« 


CHAPTER  XLVI 
The  Last  Battle 

MRS.  BROKE  left  the  cottage  a  short  time  afterwards 
to  attend  the  family  luncheon.  Delia,  apprised  of 
what  was  shortly  to  occur,  had  expressed  her  intention  of 
remaining  in  that  place  until  the  more  immediate  crisis 
at  least  was  passed.  She  promised  her  mother  that  she 
should  be  at  once  informed  when  the  nurse  sent  for  the 
doctor. 

Mrs.  Broke's  first  act  on  reaching  home  was  to  despatch 
two  maids  to  the  cottage  to  augment  the  forces  already 
gathered  there.  In  these  high  and  grave  periods  the  re- 
sources of  any  establishment  are  apt  to  be  taxed. 

At  the  luncheon  table  were  seated  Broke  and  the  three 
daughters  remaining  to  him.  As  yet  none  of  them  was 
cognisant  of  Billy's  death.  The  problem  immediately 
before  Mrs.  Broke  was  the  most  fitting  manner  of  acquaint- 
ing them.  The  task  must  prove  exceedingly  painful ; 
and  nothing  but  the  inexorable  demand  made  by  events  so 
rapidly  precipitating  would  have  induced  her  to  undertake  it 
in  her  present  state.  Even  as  she  sat  in  the  midst  of  them 
at  the  table,  and  in  lieu  of  partaking  of  food,  meditated 
upon  the  subject,  she  came  to  the  conclusion  that  the 
actual  necessity  only  applied  to  Broke  himself,  and  that 
for  the  time  being  her  daughters  could  be  left  in  a  merciful 
oblivion. 

No  sooner  was  the  meal  at  an  end  than  she  asked  Broke 
to  grant  her  a  brief  private  interview. 

"  I  will  hardly  detain  you,  Edmund,  more  than  a 
minute  or  two." 

549 


BROKE   OF    COVENDEN 

Her  tone  was  intended  to  imply  that  she  wished  to  speak 
with  him  on  a  plain  matter  of  business.  Accordingly  they 
entered  the  library  together.  Their  feet  once  again  on  that 
old  battle-ground,  where  so  much  of  their  blood  had  been 
left  already,  she  did  not  fence.  She  had  no  longer  the 
nerve.  She  must  speak  at  once,  else  the  power  would 
desert  her.  No  longer  was  she  the  perfectly  balanced,  the 
beautifully  strung  woman  of  affairs  whose  emotional 
nature  was  in  entire  subordination  to  the  will.  To  look  at 
Broke  as  he  stood  before  her  now,  and  to  recall  what  he  was 
a  few  brief  months  ago,  was  to  be  conscious  that  she  was 
gazing  upon  the  ghost  that  was  herself.  His  hair  might  be 
white,  but  hers  was  white  also.  For  every  line  in  his 
face,  the  parallel  was  to  be  found  graven  in  her  own. 

"  I  will  be  brief,  Edmund.     Billy  is  dead." 

The  white-headed  man  remained  upright  and  serene, 
except  for  the  hardly  perceptible  stoop  that  had  insinu- 
ated itself  so  recently  in  his  nobly  spreading  shoulders. 
There  was  not  a  faint  sign  of  perception  visible  in  his 
seared  face. 

"  He  died  serving  his  country.  He  was  killed  in  action 
on  the  second  of  January." 

Broke  made  no  reply.     Not  a  fibre  twitched. 

"  His  end,  as  I  conceive  it,  is  a  fitting  termination  to 
your  name.  He  is  the  last  of  you.  Your  name  dies  with 
him  ;  and  I  do  not  think  there  is  a  Broke  of  you  all  who 
could  have  devised  that  it  should  perish  more  fittingly. 
The  last  of  you  gave  his  life  for  his  country.  That  is  an 
ample  requiem,  even  for  such  a  race  as  yours.  Edmund, 
even  you  will  admit  it." 

He  remained  before  her  upright  and  unspeaking.  She 
gazed  upon  the  piece  of  stone  before  her  with  something 
approaching  a  return  to  her  old  baffling,  ironical  smile. 

"  He  was  your  son  ;  also  the  last  of  your  name.  How- 
ever you  may  seek  to  dissociate  those  two  facts,  those  two 
crude  facts,  they  must  remain  linked  permanently.  It 
may  seem  to  you  a  little  grievous  that  they  should  be  so, 
but  such  is  the  case.  He  was  your  son ;  also  he  was  the 
last  of  your  name." 

Each  word  was  charged  with  a  relentless  precision. 
They  might  have  had  bitterness  had  they  been  less  im- 

550 


THE    LAST    BATTLE 

partial,  they  might  have  had  passion  had  they  been  less 
coldly  wrought. 

Broke  still  remained  before  her  mute. 

"  Have  you  not  a  word  to  say,  Edmund  ?  Have  you 
not  a  word  in  which  you  can  answer  me  ?  " 

His  answer  to  her  was  a  walk  of  a  mechanical  weariness 
out  of  the  room. 

The  remainder  of  the  wintry  afternoon  had  for  her  that 
strange  concentration,  that  indescribable  material  density, 
as  though  time  itself  had  become  embodied  in  every  pulsa- 
tion of  the  heart,  of  the  last  four  hours  of  Joan's  life  on 
Christmas  Eve.  She  could  neither  sit  nor  lie ;  she 
could  hardly  stand  still ;  and  to  be  perpetually  walking 
about  did  not  satisfy  her  long.  She  could  not  write  nor 
could  she  read.  She  went  up  to  her  bedroom  to  attempt 
sleep.  It  was  withheld  sternly.  Thereafter  she  buried  her 
ej'es  in  the  pillows,  and  in  her  extremity  tried  to  pray. 
The  action  seemed  to  have  lost  its  virtue. 

Throughout  these  intolerable  hours,  the  need  haunted 
her  of  preserving  her  sovereign  intelligence  unsullied 
and  intact.  If  once  it  faltered,  or  fell  short  of  one  iota 
of  the  whole  force  of  its  mature  strength,  she  knew 
that  she  was  destroyed.  Now  that,  after  all  Ihese  long 
years,  the  time  was  at  hand  when  the  very  highest 
demands  were  to  be  made  upon  the  endurance  of  one 
old  and  poor  woman,  she  was  possessed  with  harrowing 
doubts  of  its  adequacy.  At  other  periods  in  her  life  it  had 
been  found  more  than  equal  to  all  emergencies.  In  every 
trial  it  had  stood  triumphant  and  foursquare.  It  had  pre- 
vailed even  in  those  seasons  when  momentarily  the  spirit 
had  seemed  to  be  unseated.  Never  until  now  had  she 
been  afflicted  with  a  doubt  of  its  quality. 

Now,  however,  she  was  invaded  by  an  unnerving  dis- 
trust. That  morning  at  the  cottage  she  had  an  evidence 
that  the  first  safeguards  of  the  inmost  citadel  and 
sanctuary,  the  barrier  of  her  reticence,  had  been  unhinged, 
had  been  thrown  down.  A  breach  was  left  gaping  in 
her  defences,  and  it  must  be  repaired.  All  that  after- 
noon she  bent  her  energies  upon  the  task.  Not  a  hole 
must  be  left  unfortified  in  the  ramparts  of  the  beleaguered 
city.  Not  a  joint  or  a  fissure  must  be  in  her  armoiir  through 

551 


BROKE   OF   COVENDEN 

which  a  stray  arrow  might  pierce  to  the  consecrated  thing 
that  lay  beyond.  For,  in  spite  of  all  that  had  gone  before, 
she  knew  that  the  really  decisive  contest  had  yet  to 
come.  And  if  she  entered  into  that  ordeal  with  one  weak 
spot  in  her  suit  of  mail,  some  pitiless  shaft  would  seek  it 
out,  and  she,  weak  woman,  would  be  overthrown  and 
slain.  Hour  by  hour  she  laboured  to  repair  that  breach 
in  the  outscarp  occasioned  by  the  breakdown  of  her  reti- 
cence. Like  one  possessed,  she  laboured.  With  a 
strenuousness  but  a  very  little  this  side  dementia,  she 
wrestled  to  recover  what  she  had  so  recently  lost.  Without 
her  reticence  there  could  be  no  battle.  It  was  the 
weapon  which  all  her  life  she  had  been  accustomed  to 
employ.  It  was  the  talisman  that  hitherto  had  enabled 
her  to  conquer  every  time  she  had  been  engaged.  The 
mere  possession  of  it  was  a  source  of  strength.  Divest 
the  poor  woman  of  her  reticence,  and  you  cut  ofl  Samson's 
hair. 

The  encounter  with  her  j'oungest  daughter  had  stripped 
her  entirely  naked.  A  fear  was  now  growing  up  in  her 
that  the  gods,  not  content  with  stripping  off  the  clothes 
of  her  civilization,  might  dare  to  palter  with  her  reason. 
Pray  Heaven  they  would  leave  her  that  !  If,  in  the  stress 
of  her  su]:ierhuman  task,  a  moment  of  weakness  or  faintness 
overtook  it,  all  was  lost.  There  was  the  work  of  a  Titan 
before  her.  Let  a  nerve,  let  a  muscle,  let  a  vein  in  her 
overdriven  brain  fail  to  respond  to  the  call,  and  the 
Giant  with  whom  she  had  to  grapple  would  fling  her  to 
the  dust,  and  press  her  life  out  with  his  heels. 

The  task  that  confronted  her  must  have  daunted  all 
save  the  indomitable.  The  irreconcilable  had  to  be 
reconciled.  If  she  yielded  her  Hfe  up  in  the  attempt, 
this  Amazon  among  women  had  made  the  pledge  to  her 
maternal  spirit  that  Broke  should  admit  his  son  and 
daughter  back  into  his  heart.  It  would  seem  that 
she  must  meet  that  grim  feudal  Titan  in  the  arena  and 
wrestle  with  his  prejudices  until  they  or  she  had  yielded 
up  their  clay.  The  woman  and  the  brute,  the  indomit- 
able and  the  savagely  implacable,  would  have  to  interlock 
their  gnarled  limbs,  and  the  woman,  by  her  natural  might, 
must  cast  the  brute  to  earth.      It  had  come  at  last  in 

552 


I 


THE    LAST    BATTLE 

the  end,  as  all  along  it  had  threatened  to  do,  to  a  question 
of  fibre.  It  would  be  a  struggle  of  sheer  physical  power. 
The  broken  woman  might  well  have  fears  for  the  too  great 
strain  imposed  upon  her  by  such  conditions.  But  the 
contest  was  not  to  be  shirked  :  the  idea  of  defeat  not  to  be 
borne.  Failure  must  result  in  death,  or  for  that  so-faithful 
spirit  something  worse. 

Hers  was  an  eminently  practical  nature  ;  exquisitely 
matter-of-fact.  In  her  anxiety  to  maintain  her  strength 
unimpaired  for  the  work  before  it,  she  turned  to  the  medi- 
cine chest,  where  a  nature  more  emotional  would  have  had 
recourse  to  religion.  Afterwards,  she  endeavoured  to 
surrender  herself  to  the  period  of  inaction  that  was  now 
intervening,  the  time  of  a  comparative  peace  antecedent 
to  the  great  and  final  conflict,  with  a  patience  more  in 
keeping  with  the  original  majesty  of  her  character.  She 
changed  her  morning  dress,  and  went  down  to  afternoon 
tea  in  the  drawing-room.  Mercifully  the  privilege  was 
vouchsafed  to  her  of  being  allowed  to  take  it  alone. 
There  were  no  callers  ;  the  girls  were  not  about  ;  and 
Broke's  scorn  of  the  effeminate  beverage  was  monstrously, 
proverbially  masculine. 

She  drank  three  cups,  and  failed  in  the  essay  to  eat 
half  a  slice  of  wafer-like  bread-and-butter  in  spite  of  the 
fact  that  not  a  crumb  had  crossed  her  lips  since  eight 
o'clock  that  morning.  She  took  up  a  novel  of  Tolstoy's 
in  French  and  tried  to  re-read  portions  of  it  chosen  at 
random.  She  found  she  could  not.  She  opened  volumes 
of  Balzac  and  Schopenhauer  taken  haphazard,  but  one  and 
all  bearing  an  acute  relation  to  human  life  and  illumin- 
ating sidelights  on  the  stress  of  it.  Their  success  was  no 
greater.  Literature  was  become  a  poor,  an  ineffectual 
thing,  when  called  upon  so  imperiously  to  mitigate  her 
vital  agonies. 

Between  six  o'clock  and  seven,  her  own  maid,  who  had 
spent  the  afternoon  in  doing  duty  at  the  cottage,  appeared 
in  the  drawing-room  in  her  cloak  and  hat. 

"  Miss  Delia  sent  me  to  tell  you,  ma'am,  that  the  doctor 
has  been  sent  for." 

"  Thank  you,"  said  Mrs.  Broke,  rising  and  laying  down 
her  book.     "  Will  you  please  fetch  me  some  things  ;  and 

553 


BROKE   OF    COVENDEN 

will  you  also  inquire  whether  Mr.  Broke  is  in  the 
library  ?  " 

"  Mr.  Broke  is  in  the  library,  ma' am,"  said  the  maid, 
returning  a  little  afterwards. 

As  the  maid  helped  her  into  her  cloak  Mrs.  Broke  said  : 
'■  You  must  eat  some  food,  and  go  back  to  the  cottage  as 
soon  as  you  can." 

She  then  went  forth  to  her  last  battle.  Broke  was  dis- 
covered seated  at  a  table  writing  letters.  As  she  entered 
the  room  he  looked  up  at  her  and  was  then  seen  to 
pause  in  his  occupation  to  bite  his  pen  vaguely,  as 
though  something  had  suddenly  passed  out  of  his  mind 
which  was  very  important  should  remain  in  it.  He  was 
about  to  resume  without  speaking  a  word,  when  she 
said — 

"  I  am  sorry  to  interrupt  you,  Edmund,  but  I  would 
ask  for  a  minute  or  two  of  your  attention." 

He  laid  down  his  pen  and  rose  from  his  chair  in  a  fashion 
of  mechanical  weariness.  As  he  did  so  she  took  care  that 
the  road  to  the  door  was  barred  effectually  by  her  sombrely 
spreading  presence. 

"  I  give  you  my  promise,  Edmund,  that  this  is  the  last 
occasion  on  which  I  shall  make  a  reference  to  a  distressing 
subject.  On  that  ground  I  ask  you  to  give  a  patient 
hearing  to  what  I  have  to  say.     You  will  ?  " 

He  stood  without  one  evidence  of  life  in  his  face.  His 
silence  was  complete. 

"  Answer  me,  Edmund.     You  will  ?  " 

The  tired  expression  in  his  face  seemed  to  deepen,  but 
he  did  not  reply. 

"  You  must,  Edmund,  and  you  shall.  There  is  one 
essential  thing  you  should  hear,  and  hear  it  you  shall.  It 
is  this " 

He  made  a  sudden  attempt  to  get  past  her  to  the  door. 
She  stepped  quickly  in  front  of  him,  and  held  him  with 
two  cold  but  firm  hands  on  the  breast  of  his  coat. 

"It  is  not  for  you  and  me  to  descend  into  the  merely 
futile,  Edmund,"  she  said  in  a  voice  that  had  a  far-off 
suggestion  of  a  superhuman  laughter  in  it.  "  What  I 
have  to  say  is  this  :  they  have  just  sent  to  tell  me  that  the 
wife  of  your  son  lies  at  the  cottage  on  the  hill  with  child. 

554 


THE    LAST    BATTLE 

And  I  hasten  to  inform  you  of  this  fact,  because  I  conceive 
it  to  be  my  duty.  You  are  the  one  person  whom  it  more 
immediately  concerns.  Your  only  son  is  dead,  but  you 
will  recognize  that,  after  all,  your  name  may  not  be  ex- 
tinct. I  now  ask  of  you  that  you  accompany  me  to  the 
cottage  to  ascertain  for  yourself  the  fate  that  is  reserved 
for  that  which  is  more  to  you  than  anything  else  in  the 
world." 

These  inflexible  words  were  rendered  in  something  of 
the  conscious  manner  of  a  peroration,  but  all  the  while 
she  was  speaking  she  never  took  her  haggard  eyes 
from  those  of  the  man  before  her.  But  he  did  what  he 
could  to  avert  his  own.  He  still  stood  motionless  and 
perfectly  erect,  except  where  the  massive  shoulders  were 
a  little  bowed  as  by  a  succession  of  loads  that  had  proved 
too  heavy  for  them  to  bear.  But  there  was  not  a  sign  of 
comprehension  to  be  detected  in  him. 

"  For  you  to  remain  insensible  to  all  that  fact  means 
cannot  be.  A  son  may  be  born  to  your  house  this  evening, 
and  in  that  event  the  very  loyalty  to  the  name  you  bear 
will  compel  you  to  acknowledge  it.  The  very  pride  of 
kindred  that  will  not  allow  you  to  relent  will  in  that  case 
force  you  to  do  so." 

Again  she  strove  to  peer  into  the  hidden  eyes. 

"  Setting  personal  bias  apart,"  she  went  on  in  a  voice 
in  which  the  note  of  emotion  had  been  suppressed  rigor- 
ously, "  let  us  put  the  matter  on  the  higher  plane  of  an 
impersonal  practical  wisdom.  Do  you  not  see  that  if  that 
one  event  happens  you  will  be  compelled  to  submit  ? 
Would  it  not  be  more  politic,  do  you  not  think,  to  recognize 
that  fact  before  it  comes  to  pass  ?  Is  it  not  due  to  yourself 
that  you  yield  of  your  own  free  will  rather  than  at  the 
dictation  of  Circumstance  ?  Consider  it,  Edmund,  in 
that  light.  Consider  how  essential  it  is  to  make  that 
concession  here  and  now.     It  is  to  save  yourself." 

Broke  continued  dumb.  No  sound  interrupted  the 
long  minute  of  silence  that  fell  between  them.  His  wife 
then  altered  her  tone.  It  acquired  a  note  of  pity,  it 
assumed  a  tinge  of  irony. 

"  My  poor,  dear  man,"  she  said  gently,  "  can  you  not  see 
how  futile  your  own  puny  efforts  are  when  you  oppose  them 

555 


BROKE    OF    COVENDEN 

to  Fate  ?  To  persevere  one  hour  longer  in  the  attitude 
you  have  taken  up  is  to  go  headlong  to  your  own  doom. 
You  forget  that  you  are  not  a  mythical  character,  able  to 
mould  your  destiny  according  to  j'our  will.  To  the  trades- 
people of  Cuttisham  you  are  the  squire  of  Covenden ;  to  your 
friends  and  neighbours  you  are  a  person  of  an  unimpeach- 
able respectabihty  ;  you  are  a  symbol  of  Aristocracy  in  the 
conventional  sense  ;  but  to  the  God  of  Heaven  or  the  Pagan 
Deities  or  the  General  Force  you  are  no  more  than  any  mortal 
of  them  all.  What  can  the  devices  of  our  wretched  so- 
limited  flesh  avail  when  they  are  face  to  face  with  their 
consummate  powers  ?  One  stroke  from  the  paw  of  Circum- 
stance and  you  are  prone.  Do  you  suppose,  my  poor,  dear 
man,  they  do  not  mock  at  you  ?  Do  you  think  They  do 
not  deride  you  to  death  when  you  set  up  your  miserable, 
ineffectual  will  against  '^heirs  ?  If  there  is  still  a  sense  of 
proportion  remaining  to  you,  I  implore  you  to  exercise  it. 
Exercise  it  while  there  is  yet  time.  Before  this  night  is 
over  I  believe  that  the  power  of  volition  may  no  longer  be 
yours." 

Broke  remained  a  statue.  Not  even  words  of  mockery 
such  as  these  could  break  through  the  wall  of  his  im- 
passive muteness.  From  first  to  last  he  did  not  move. 
The  unhappy  woman,  knowing  it  to  be  the  last  interview 
they  could  ever  hold  together  on  this  subject,  continued  to 
press  this  final  opportunity.  She  was  losing  her  last 
momentous  battle,  nay,  her  sick  spirit  told  her  she  had  lost 
it  already,  but  she  must  go  on.  From  mockery  and 
derision  of  him  she  passed  to  all  the  arts  and  devices 
of  perfervid  appeal,  mounting  presently  to  the  weird 
violences  of  passion,  afterwards  to  return  to  a  cool, 
defiant,  superhuman  self-control.  She  spoke  with  a 
serenity  of  selection,  a  concentrated  discretion  of  phrase 
which  proved  that  in  this,  its  last  extremity,  her  mind 
retained  its  powers  undaunted  and  to  the  full.  Argument, 
solicitation,  menace,  cajolery,  appeals  to  his  dignity,  his 
intelligence,  the  welfare  of  his  race,  her  own  long  and 
faithful  services  on  his  behalf,  suggestions  of  policy  and 
ex]iedience,  indeed,  every  weapon  her  overdriven  wits 
had  in  their  armourv  she  dared  to  employ  and  did  employ 
with  a  directness  that  was  unsparing.     But  from  first  to 

556 


THE    LAST   BATTLE 

last  he  stood  a  veritable  rock.  Not  a  word  crept  out  of  his 
locked  lips.  The  hue  of  death  was  upon  his  face,  the 
inanimation  of  it  was  upon  his  heart. 

However,  she  supported  this  passiveness  with  absolute 
fortitude.  Her  qualities  were  not  tested  in  vain.  In  her 
hour  of  supreme  need  they  did  not  desert  her.  Like 
those  of  the  truest  of  her  countrymen,  they  would  not 
allow  her  to  admit  that  she  was  beaten,  defeated,  over- 
thrown, long  after  that  fact  had  appalled  her  spirit. 
On  and  on  she  struggled  breathlessly,  sickly,  blindly, 
with  a  dogged  valour,  long  after  her  aim  had  lost  its  concen- 
tration and  certainty.  The  inevitable  loomed  ahead, 
a  dark  and  grisly  bulk,  but  to  submit  to  it  was  impossible 
as  long  as  there  was  a  drunken  stagger  left  in  her  limbs. 
And  when  weak,  when  sobbing  for  breath,  when  despised 
and  broken  at  last,  she  foresaw  that  the  mere  limitations 
of  the  flesh  were  about  to  conquer  her,  she  said  finally, 
with  hardly  the  same  degree  of  control  in  her  voice, 
and  with  something  perhaps  a  little  overwrought  in  her 
demeanour — 

"  Edmund,  there  is  one  word  more.  If  a  son  is  born 
to  your  house  this  evening  I  would  have  you  remember 
that  he  inherits  a  fortune  of  some  two  hundred  and 
seventy  thousand  pounds.  Do  not  forget  that  the 
will  of  old  Mr.  Brefitt  is  made  in  his  favour. 
And  I  ask,  are  you  so  blinded  by  your  own  arrogance 
that  you  do  not  distinguish  by  the  light  of  that 
circumstance  that  a  sardonic  agent  is  presiding  over  your 
affairs  ?  I  ask  you,  Edmund,  do  you  not  detect  a  certain 
irony  in  the  fact  that  you,  the  arch-despiser  of  the  vulgar 
and  the  sordid,  you,  the  high  priest  of  the  cult  of  blue 
blood  and  virgin  aristocracy,  should  be  condemned  to  have 
the  very  existence  of  your  house  depend  on  the  contempt- 
uous benevolence  of  such  a  one  as  the  late  Mr.  Brefht  ? 
That  two  hundred  and  seventy  thousand  pounds  will 
intervene  to  save  us  all  from  ruin,  and  in  the  event  of  a 
manchild  being  given  to  you  to-night,  will  secure  to  your 
heirs  throughout  generations  yet  to  come  something  of 
the  former  affluence  of  your  race.  Edmund,  I  implore 
you  to  yield.  Do  you  not  see  that  Circumstance  is  gibing 
at  you  ?     Do  you  not  see  that  you  are  become  a  sport 

557 


BROKE   OF   COVENDEN 

and  a  plaything  of  High  Heaven  ?  Have  you  yet  to  learn, 
my  poor  Edmund,  that  whenever  these  Immortals  spy 
out  an  inherent  baseness  flourishing  in  the  rank  soil  of 
our  human  souls,  they  gloat  upon  the  sight  and  smack 
their  chops  ?  Give  in,  poor  Edmund ;  renounce  the  damned 
thing  lest  they  mock  you  to  death. 

"For  the  last  time  I  beseech  you  to  come  with  me  to 
the  cottage  now.  Accept  the  unhappy  creature  you  have 
despised  before  you  are  made  to  do  so  by  that  inex- 
orable Force  that  is  deriding  you.  Put  away  your  blind- 
ness, Edmund,  and  forgive  your  son  who  has  lain  this 
fortnight  dead — before  you  are  made  to  do  so  miserably 
upon  your  knees.  AncC'-there  is  another  child,  an  outcast 
from  your  heart,  whom  "you  will  be  compelled  to  reinstate. 
Can  you  not  see  that  it  will  be  more  consistent  with 
the  native  dignity  of  your  nature  if  you  do  these  things 
of  your  own  choice  ?  Do  not  tarry  until  a  manchild 
is  given  to  your  house.  If  you  do,  it  will  become  a 
weapon  to  compel  you  to  obey.  I  speak  for  the  last 
time,  Edmund  ;  I  can  speak  no  more." 

She  ended  with  flushed  cheeks  and  many  signs  of 
purely  physical  distress.  She  trembled  violently  ;  there 
was  a  tightening  of  her  throat  and  chest ;  the  breath 
issued  out  of  her  in  hard  and  thick  sobs  ;  the  very  tissues 
of  her  overwrought  being  seemed  to  stagger.  Again  and 
again  she  tried  to  snatch  a  glimpse  of  our  hero's  averted 
eyes.  She  raked  the  mask  that  was  his  face  for  the  relax- 
ation of  a  muscle  ;  she  searched  every  inch  of  his  clenched 
stolidity  for  one  faint  evidence  of  a  produced  effect.  For 
all  that  she  could  read,  she  would  have  done  as  well  to  have 
searched  the  face  of  a  wall. 

She  withdrew  her  sick  eyes,  and  went  out  of  the  room 
without  saying  anything  further.  She  set  out  for  the 
cottage  with  her  insurgent  thoughts  cooling  from  a  white 
heat,  and  clotting  into  a  nightmare  that  made  a  horror 
in  her  brain.  It  was  a  very  dark  night.  There  was  a 
wet  wind  in  it  that  now  and  then  carried  a  thin  spatter 
of  rain.  It  was  very  mild  for  the  time  of  year.  She 
walked  fast  and  felt  a  sensation  of  ]:)hysical  relief  when  an 
occasional  spray  of  rain  was  dashed  in  her  face.  Her 
cheeks  were  burning  with  such  an  intensity  that  when 

558 


THE    LAST   BATTLE 

these  tears  out  of  heaven  were  flung  upon  them,  an  effect 
was  made  in  her  imagination  of  water  hissing  on  the  red 
heated  surface  of  a  cauldron. 

In  her  heart  was  the  clear  conviction  of  failure,  and 
something  worse.  She  had  staked  her  all ;  it  had  been 
swept  away ;  and  she  was  totally  bankrupt.  She  had 
matched  all  she  had  of  resolution,  of  mother- wit,  of  capacity 
for  suffering  against  the  unreason  of  this  man,  and  he 
had  treated  them  as  nought.  All  hope  of  his  salvation 
was  gone — and  of  her  own.  As  she  took  her  way  through 
the  slimy  purlieus  of  that  dark  evening  it  was  an  after- 
thought to  overwhelm  her.  There  was  not  a  hope  remain- 
ing for  him,  not  one  remaining  for  herself.  He  had 
rejected  her  most  sacred  entreaties  ;  he  had  stood  insen- 
sible to  her  most  passionate  prayers.  All  elementary 
considerations  of  justice,  righteousness,  humane  policy 
had  been  swallowed  in  the  maw  of  that  inordinate  demon 
that  had  eaten  away  his  nature.  His  implacability  had 
become  inhuman.  That  man  was  perverted  who 
cherished  a  resentment  so  monstrous  at  such  a  season  in 
the  life  of  himself  and  in  the  life  of  that  he  valued  more. 

As  she  walked  at  a  furious  pace  to  the  cottage,  wth 
the  gushes  of  rain  bringing  to  her  the  only  kind  of  relief 
that  was  possible  now,  a  relief  that  was  for  the  flesh 
purely,  the  horrified  woman  beheld  receding  backwards 
in  front  of  her,  step  by  step,  into  the  black  wall  of  the  night 
simultaneously  with  her  action  of  striding  forward  into 
it,  a  huge  ungainly  shape.  Once  before,  and  for  an  instant 
only,  she  had  caught  a  sight  of  such  a  hideous  phantom.  It 
was  in  the  night  following  her  confrontation  with  her 
husband's  attitude  towards  his  daughter  after  her  flight. 
This  evening,  however,  the  horror  was  more  vivid,  much 
more  embodied.  With  jaunty  and  spasmodic  gjo-ations 
it  backed  before  her  into  the  darkness,  receding  step  by 
step,  a  grotesque  dancing  monster  performing  unheard-of 
antics,  a  great  nameless  something  flapping  and  waving 
its  paws.  But  odd  and  misshapen  as  this  moving 
and  mocking  shape  might  be,  the  stoop  it  had  in  the 
shoulders  made  her  think  only  of  one.  And  once  or 
twice  as  it  emerged  for  a  moment  visible  out  of  a  wrack 
of  fast-flying  clouds  and  wind-shaken  trees,  she  saw  its 

559 


BROKE    OF   COVENDEN 

face.  It  was  grinning  at  her  in  the  guise  of  a  beast's,  but  it 
was  the  face  of  Broke. 

Her  flesh  reeled  when  she  saw  it  first.  She  shut  her 
eyes,  and  reopened  them  to  find  that  this  inhuman  face 
was  again  blotted  out  by  the  clouds  and  the  trees.  But 
at  the  end  of  the  avenue,  in  a  brief  interval  of  pasture, 
it  was  there  again.  It  was  merged  almost  immediately 
in  the  wall  of  a  farm  building.  All  the  time,  however, 
the  grotesque  bulk  continued  to  mow  and  flop  as  it  receded 
before  her.  Suddenly,  turning  a  corner,  the  illuminated 
white  blind  of  a  farm-labourer's  cottage  flashed  into 
view.  With  a  piercing  sense  of  relief  she  knocked  at 
1  he  door  and  was  able  to  borrow  a  lantern. 

With  that  bright  talisman  to  bear  her  through  the  night 
the  monstrosity  before  her  was  reduced,  but  notldng 
could  make  it  vanish.  For  she  had  waked  to  a  dis- 
covery. Her  mate,  her  yokefellow,  had  had  the  mask 
torn  off  his  countenance.  After  all  these  years  his  secret 
was  known.  He  stood  forth  a  brute  in  a  man's  shape, 
an  ogre,  a  beast,  a  cleanly  Englishman's  clay  inhabited  by 
a  spirit  out  of  the  Pit. 

This  new  knowledge  made  her  reel  and  moan  aloud  to 
the  wind  in  an  agony.  It  was  driving  her  mad.  She  felt 
a  physical  loathing  to  spawn  in  her  flesh.  It  was  poison- 
ing her  nice  blood.  Her  very  arteries  were  growing 
foul  and  thick,  and  her  heart  could  not  perform  its 
functions.  She  had  lain  on  the  bosom  of  a  wild  beast 
these  many  years,  a  wild  beast  formed  ironically  in  the 
image  of  a  Christian  Englishman.  She  had  been  strained 
to  its  breast,  and  she  had  suckled  its  young.  One  of  the 
breed  of  the  monster  had  only  that  morning  stripped 
every  rag  off  her  until  her  gentle  body  was  bare,  and  had 
then  fleshed  its  maiden  claws  in  her.  And  in  this  first 
insatiate  indulgence  in  its  savageness,  it  could  not  be 
induced  to  take  them  forth  again  until  the  woman  that 
had  borne  it  promised  imminently  to  bleed  to  death. 
Of  such  were  the  things  she  had  nurtured  with  all  the 
lavish  measure  of  a  mother's  care,  under  the  pitiable  gross 
delusion  that  they  were  human  as  herself.  Where  was 
that  vaunted,  that  inveterate  wisdom  that  could  be 
ctieated  so  ?     Poor  deluded  sheep  that  she  was,  was  she 

560 


THE    LAST    BATTLE 

not  paying  forfeit  of  her  wits  because  the  offspring  which 
she  had  cherished  as  ewe  lambs  since  the  accursed  day 
she  brought  them  forth  had  developed  the  fangs  and  the 
claws,  the  foul  nature,  the  inordinate  bloody  appetite  of 
the  damned  thing  that  was  their  sire. 

The  horror  in  her  brain  had  already  caused  one  fact 
to  assume  an  outstanding  dimension.  It  was  one  that 
she  had  foreseen  when  she  entered  upon  that  last  inter- 
view. But  now  the  realization  of  it  was  creeping  through 
her  veins  with  the  deadly  stealth  of  a  drug.  It  was 
convulsing  her  heart.  They  could  be  man  and  wife  no 
more.  In  all  that  long  term  of  their  conjugal  intercourse 
this  was  the  first  breach  that  had  come  between  them. 
Such  a  pair  of  temperate  and  eminently  sane  persons 
had  known  how  to  exalt  the  business  of  living  together 
into  a  symphony  of  companionship.  Their  good  breed- 
ing had  enabled  them  to  draw  the  nicest  distinctions 
in  the  art  of  give-and-take.  As  far  as  it  is  allowed  for 
one  human  being  to  interpret  another  human  being  in 
terms  apprehended  of  their  common  instincts.  Broke  and 
his  wife  had  known  how  to  do  it.  They  had  been 
very  much  to  one  another.  They  had  lived  in  the  inner 
paradise  of  a  very  perfect  harmony.  As  she  walked 
however,  in  this  gross  darkness  the  thirty-years  wife  of 
his  bosom  saw  all  that  was  past.  This  exquisite  com- 
munion had  been  wrenched  asunder.  The  same  perfect 
loyalty  of  intercourse  could  never  be  again.  It  would  be 
out  of  the  question  to  yield  that  peculiar  fidelity  to  one 
who  had  become  so  peremptorily  embodied  in  her  fancy 
as  a  devil.  A  grisly  accident  had  pulled  aside  the  veli. 
For  thirty  years,  incredible  as  the  fact  might  seem,  she 
had  been  deceived  by  that  fair,  that  palpable  device.  She 
would  be  deceived  no  more.  And  yet  she  might  have 
gone  to  her  grave  in  this  deception  had  not  a  sardonic 
impulse  overcome  High  Heaven. 


501  NN 


CHAPTER  XLVII 

At  the  Cottage  on  the  Hill 

IT  was  a  relief  to  the  afflicted  woman  to  reach  the  cottage. 
Here  for  the  time  being  was  a  surcease  from  the  pangs 
her  outraged  instincts  were  wreaking  upon  her.  The 
comfort  afforded  by  it  was  scanty  indeed,  but  anything 
was  to  be  welcomed  rather  than  she  should  be  cast 
solitary  upon  the  mercy  of  the  night.  There  was  human 
companionship  at  least  in  the  little  place.  There 
were  new  excitements  to  apply  their  sedatives  to  her 
unendurable  aches.  What  was  about  to  occur  presently 
might  prove  unendurable  also,  but  any  diversion  of  her 
immediate  sufferings  brought  with  it  relief  of  a  kind. 

Dr.  Walker  had  arrived  already.  He  was  as  grul^  as 
usual  and  as  grimly  cheerful.  He  received  Mrs.  Broke 
with  something  of  the  nature  of  a  rough  humour  in  his 
eye. 

"  You  are  a  wonderful  sex,"  he  said,  "  for  the  climac- 
terics. You  will  no  more  be  denied  your  births,  marriages 
and  funerals  than  will  a  brood  mare  her  feed  of  oats. 
The  place  is  infested  with  women." 

"  We  are  indeed  great  sticklers  for  our  emotional  per- 
quisites," said  Mrs.  Broke.  "  Emotion  is  our  food  and 
drink.  Men  have  no  relish  for  it,  of  course.  I  believe 
they  have  a  positive  distaste  for  the  precious  stui^  upon 
which  we  wax  and  grow  so  fat." 

She  spoke  with  a  chastened  laugh  that  somehow  went 
against  the  doctor's  grain. 

"  I  shall  look  to  see  the  grandfather  here  before  the 
night  is  over,"  said  the  doctor  in  his  blunt  fashion.  "  What 
a  rare  stroke  of  luck  if  it  be  a  boy !  " 

562 


AT   THE    COTTAGE    ON    THE    HILL 

"  I  think  a  little  good  fortune  one  way  or  another  is 

about  due  to  us." 

"  Yes,  I  think  it  is." 

He  looked  into  the  face  of  the  woman  before  him  with 
great  keenness.  That  laugh  of  hers  jarred  more  than 
ever  upon  his  ear.  Also  he  saw  there  other  things  that 
jarred  upon  him. 

"  I  should  like  you  to  go  away  for  a  bit,"  he  said  in  a 
kind  manner.  "  Go  away  to-morrow  to  the  Mediter- 
ranean for  a  month  or  two.  Take  Mr.  Broke.  You  are 
both  a  bit  run  down.  You  want  change  and  a  rest.  You 
have  been  going  through  a  bit  too  much,  both  of  you." 

"  We  shall  see,"  she  said,  gently  putting  him  off  with 
a  return  of  her  placidity.  "  What  do  you  think  of  the 
poor  thing  upstairs  ?  " 

The  doctor  was  seen  to  compress  his  lips. 

"  She  is  a  very  frail  bit  of  a  thing,"  he  said. 

"  Is  she  not  just  the  wick  of  a  farthing  candle  that 
might  easily  go  out  ?  " 

"  I  did  not  say  so.  Fortunately  they  so  seldom  do. 
However  faint  the  spark  in  them  may  seem,  Dame 
Nature  is,  after  all,  a  trusty  soul  and  a  prudent  housewife. 
I  have  seen  her  keep  many  a  candle  burning  in  such  hours 
as  these,  when  the  slightest  breath  would  have  quenched 
it.  When  the  pinch  comes  we  can  look  to  her  to  make 
a  great  effort  for  her  children." 

"  But  I  think  that  child  is  the  most  fragile  thing  I 
have  ever  seen." 

"  Perhaps  it  may  relieve  you  to  know  that  I  have  only  lost 
one  case  of  this  kind  in  all  my  professional  experience. 
Such  cases  are  astonishingly  few,  especially  when  one 
considers  the  morbid  dread  that  so  often  overtakes  the 
patient.  It  is  wonderful  how  nature  contrives  to  put  her 
best  leg  first,  even  when  you  would  think  she  could  not 
possibly." 

"  I  fear  for  her  on  account  of  her  husband.  She  hcis  a 
terrible  prepossession." 

"  There  lies  our  difficulty,  of  course.  Nothing  could 
have  been  more  unfortunate.  But  it  does  not  debar  us 
from  being  of  good  hope." 

With  this  final  expression  of  the  doctor's  faith  in  the 

563 


BROKE   OF    COVEN  DEN 

mighty  mother,  the  sacred  rites  began  upstairs  and  down. 
Soft-footed  women  flitted  hither  and  thither  with  flushed 
and  grave  faces.  Many  were  the  mysterious  whispers 
that  were  interchanged,  and  many  the  mysterious  orders 
given.  The  nurse  took  on  the  dignity  of  an  Eastern  poten- 
tate or  a  Teutonic  king.  Her  nod  and  beck  became  the 
law  of  the  land.  The  bedroom,  the  sitting-room  and  the 
back  kitchen  trembled  at  her  eagle  glance.  When  she 
lifted  up  her  autocratic  mien  and  snuffed  the  air  and 
informed  the  world  at  large  with  a  perfect  trumpet-note 
of  conviction  "  that  she  was  sure  something  was  scorch- 
ing "  her  demeanour  verged  upon  the  sublime.  It  was 
not  so  much  that  a  reference  was  conveyed  to  the  array  of 
shawls,  blankets,  long  clothes,  and  paraphernalia  of  one 
sort  and  another  which  had  been  set  forth  on  the  backs 
of  chairs  in  front  of  the  fire  in  the  little  sitting-room,  as  the 
detachment  of  mind  that  was  argued  in  one  whose  austere 
bosom  could  evince  a  perception  of  a  mundane  detail  in 
the  vortex  of  an  event  that  made  an  epoch  in  the 
life  of  the  species.  It  was  as  much  an  evidence 
of  a  vast  experience,  and  as  effectively  betrayed 
the  "  Old  Parliamentary  Hand,"  as  the  incredible 
sang-froid  of  the  late  Mr.  Gladstone,  who  was  wont  to 
startle  the  neophytes  of  the  British  Parliament  by  pro- 
ducing a  volume  of  Horace  from  the  crown  of  his  hat  at 
the  moment  an  occupant  of  the  Front  Bench  was  apostro- 
phising Russia  and  those  other  uttermost  peoples  of  the 
world. 

The  female  orgies  continued  to  go  on,  and  were  carried 
to  great  lengths.  Queer  foods  and  invalid  concoctions 
appeared  on  the  table  in  the  little  sitting-room,  and  strange 
emblems  of  science  as  applied  to  medicine  came  on  it  too. 
The  cenacle  of  women  flitting  round  them  grew  even  more 
rapt  in  its  responsiveness  to  the  exigencies  of  the  moment, 
when  first  the  doctor  and  then  the  nurse  was  seen  to  go 
upstairs  with  silent  tread  and  solemn. 

It  happened  at  a  time  when  Mrs.  Broke  and  Delia  stood 
a  little  apart  in  an  angle  formed  by  the  wall  and  the 
chimney-piece,  helping  one  another  in  the  manipulation 
of  linen,  and  Miss  Sparrow  was  a  few  paces  from  them 
holding  a  saucepan  of  milk  over  the  fire,  that  the  outer 

564 


AT   THE   COTTAGE    ON    THE    HILL 

door  was  seen  to  revolve  on  its  hinges  in  a  manner  so 
soundless  that  it  looked  like  mystery.  In  the  next  instant 
the  wind  swept  a  gush  of  rain  into  the  cosy  room,  and  with 
it  were  heard  obscure  sounds  of  shuffling  feet.  The  door 
was  pushed  open  wider,  and  the  dank  figure  of  a  man  was 
outlined  in  the  gloom  of  the  threshold.  The  startled 
eyes  of  the  witnesses  peering  at  this  strange  apparition 
through  the  hardly  adequate  glare  of  the  lamp  and  the 
firelight  saw  it  to  be  that  of  a  large  man  and  burly.  There 
was  an  odd  stoop  in  his  shoulders.  His  hair  was  almost 
white,  and  his  face  was  grey. 

He  lurched  into  the  room  with  his  hands  thrust  out  in 
front  of  him  in  the  manner  of  one  blinded  so  recently  that 
as  yet  he  was  not  grown  accustomed  to  his  affliction,  or  of 
one  groping  forward  into  a  dark  room  to  find  a  box  of 
matches.  But  his  eyes  seemed  to  have  no  spark  of  con- 
sciousness residing  therein.  It  was  as  though  he  neither 
knew  where  he  was  nor  what  he  was  about.  He  groped 
his  way  past  the  table  to  the  most  distant  corner  of  the 
room,  which  an  empty  chair  chanced  to  keep.  As  he 
shuffled  towards  it  he  looked  neither  to  the  right  nor  to 
the  left.  There  was  something  eerie  in  the  manner  of  his 
progress,  its  total  oblivion  to  light  and  surroundings,  that 
suggested  a  person  walking  in  his  sleep.  There  appeared 
not  the  faintest  recognition  in  him  of  time  and  place. 

The  three  witnesses  of  the  apparition  were  separated 
from  it  by  the  table.  Spellbound  they  stood  to  watch. 
They  were  fascinated,  unable  to  speak  or  move,  by  the 
intrusion  of  this  weird,  uncanny  presence.  It  was  not 
until  it  sat  down  with  an  audible  heaviness  on  the  chair  in 
the  corner,  plucked  from  its  head  the  square-crowned  felt 
hat  from  which  the  wet  was  running  in  a  stream,  and  laid 
it  on  the  floor  with  a  purely  mechanical  gesture  by  the 
side  of  its  gaiters,  and  proceeded  then  to  rest  its  chin  on  a 
knuckle  which  in  turn  rested  upon  the  knob  of  an  ash 
stick  which  was  borne  in  its  hands,  that  the  power  of  move- 
ment returned  to  the  three  who  saw. 

The  old  aunt  was  the  first  to  recover  it.  She  left  the 
saucepan  of  milk,  which  was  already  beginning  to  bubble 
on  the  fire,  and  crept  with  a  stealtliy  terror  to  the  side  of 
Mrs.  Broke,  and  timidly  took  hold  of  her  dress.     It  was 

565 


BROKE    OF    COVENDEN 

the  act  of  a  child  in  the  nursery  when  it  has  been  deluded 
into  thinking  that  a  bear  or  a  giant  has  walked  into  the 
room.  The  old  woman,  shuddering  in  every  vein,  pressed 
her  trembling  face  against  the  ample  person  of  Mrs.  Broke  ; 
and  when  of  a  sudden  the  neglected  milk  surged  up  in  the 
saucepan  and  boiled  over  with  a  mighty  hiss  into  the  fire, 
she  fastened  a  more  convulsive  clutch  upon  the  gown  of 
her  protectress,  as  though  the  fierce  sound  of  the  milk 
among  the  cinders  was  the  dread  roaring  of  a  beast. 

Delia's  act  was  of  a  different  character.  When  by  force 
of  gazing  the  fact  was  imbrued  in  her  numbly  that  the  man 
who  had  groped  his  way  into  the  little  room  was  her  father, 
she  tore  her  eyes  from  his  huddled  shape  in  the  very  instant 
her  senses  permitted  her  to  know  that  it  was  he,  and  made, 
with  a  hurry  which  yet  had  a  sort  of  deliberation  in  it, 
past  the  array  of  shawls  and  blankets  and  infant  clothing 
arranged  still  before  the  fire,  into  an  even  smaller  apart- 
ment than  this  in  which  her  father  was  seated,  where  the 
two  maids  her  mother  had  sent  from  the  house  were  ful- 
filling various  duties. 

It  was  a  full  minute  before  the  frightened  old  aunt  was 
sufficiently  recovered  to  loosen  her  convulsive  grip  of  Mrs. 
Broke.  Even  then,  when  ruefully  she  proceeded  to  pick 
the  burning  saucepan  off  the  fire,  she  was  still  trembhng 
violentlv.  Not  once  as  she  refilled  the  saucepan  with 
milk  from  a  bowl  that  stood  on  the  table  did  she  dare  to 
let  her  eyes  stray  in  the  direction  of  the  ogre  seated  oppo- 
site, with  his  chin  resting  on  his  stick. 

Nor  did  Mrs.  Broke  venture  to  allow  her  eyes  to  stray 
towards  that  dreadful  presence.  Her  blood  had  seemed 
to  have  burst  out  of  its  vessels  already.  Waxing  to  a 
flood,  it  seemed  to  be  flowing  over  and  submerging  her  five 
wits. 

As  it  roared  through  her  ears  and  darkened  her  eyes 
she  grew  blind  and  deaf.  She  continued  to  stand,  although 
bereft  completely  of  the  capacity  to  hear  or  to  see.  Nor 
could  she  feel  anything  except  the  phenomenon  happening 
in  herself.  The  five  senses  were  whelmed  in  a  scalding  red 
vapour.  What  had  happened  she  did  not  know.  Involun- 
tarily she  shuttered  her  ineffectual  eyes.  Something  had 
happened,  something  had  occurred,  but   more  than  one 

566 


AT   THE    COTTAGE    ON    THE    HILL 

minute  had  to  make  a  circuit  of  seconds,  and  be  ticked  out 
of  her  pulses  before  so  much  as  two  consecutive,  two 
reasonably  cogent  thoughts  could  convey  the  dimmest 
sense  of  its  nature. 

Physically  she  was  in  the  condition  of  the  felon  who,  cut 
down  from  the  gallows  as  dead,  is  in  the  act  of  being  restored 
to  life  by  his  devoted  friends.  He  has  been  cut  down  as 
dead,  but  with  their  remedies  and  restoratives  they  are 
forcing  back  the  tardy  blood,  blackening  already,  along  one 
artery  at  a  time.  The  agony  of  resuscitation  is  said  to  be 
unendurable.  It  is  said  that  even  life  itself,  the  most 
sovereign  boon  of  any,  is  too  dearly  purchased  at  the  price 
of  that  ineffable  anguish.  To  be  so  far  gone  in  death,  and 
yet  not  to  be  allowed  to  die,  is  resented  by  nature  as  an 
interference  with  her  first  prerogative.  The  hapless 
sufferer,  the  instant  the  first  black  droppings  begin  to  flow, 
cries  aloud  for  death  as  the  one  solace  to  be  rendered  to  his 
mortal  throes.  This  wretched  woman  had  been  cut  down 
from  the  tree,  to  all  intents  and  purposes  dead,  and  here 
was  the  man  come  to  reclaim  that  still  warm  body,  and 
in  the  act  starts  the  congealed  life  in  her  afresh. 

She  was  not  to  be  allowed  to  perish,  although  she  wished 
so  to  do,  having  tasted  already  of  the  ultimate  sweetness 
of  death.  The  very  act  of  her  passing  was  arrested.  By 
the  time  she  had  acquired  this  first  illusive,  evasive  instinct 
which  made  for  knowledge,  her  shuddering  form  had  been 
forced  into  a  chair  at  the  table  littered  with  crockery. 
She  rested  her  elbows  upon  it,  and  held  the  sides  of  her 
breaking  head  between  her  hands.  One  of  her  elbows 
rested  in  a  bowl  half  full  of  milk,  the  other  on  a  tray  con- 
taining bread.  The  monster  was  there  in  that  room, 
seated.  How  he  had  found  his  way  there  that  night  of  all 
nights,  through  the  rain  and  the  darkness,  was  a  secret  in 
the  keeping  of  the  mocking  deity  who  had  fashioned  him 
in  the  shape  of  a  human  father  and  husband.  Doubtless 
it  was  the  same  deity  who  would  not  allow  her  now  to  die. 

He  was  come  to  the  cottage  of  his  dead  son.  He  was 
there  in  that  room,  with  his  guilty  hands  holding  his  chin. 
Would  it  not  be  in  keeping  with  the  fact  to  say  that  the 
pride  of  kindred  and  the  passion  for  the  land,  with  the  aroma 
of  a  thousand  years  upon  it,  had  drugged  his  spirit  as  with 

567 


BROKE   OF   COVENDEN 

a  great  and  aged  wine,  and  had  led  him,  drunken  and  blind 
and  staggering,  through  the  black  winter's,  evening,  to  the 
wind-shaken,  rain-beaten  threshold  of  that  cottage  door  ? 
He  might  well  reel,  well  might  there  be  no  shade  of  compre- 
hension in  those  glazed  eyes,  in  that  obscene  face.  The 
monster  was  drugged  into  a  helplessness,  an  inanity  that 
was  even  more  unseemly  than  his  native  beastliness.  He 
had  come  there  to  that  little  room  in  spite  of  himself, 
knowing  nothing  of  his  deed.  He  knew  as  much  of  what 
he  was  about  as  a  caterpillar  chmbing  a  tree.  Millions  of 
generations  of  caterpillars  had  gone  through  that  irrelevant 
performance  in  the  stress  of  some  vague  instinct,  and  to 
the  end  of  time  they  would  continue  to  obey  it.  For  no 
more  sufficient  reason  was  the  monster  sitting  in  that  room 
now,  with  his  chin  upon  his  stick.  He,  no  more  than  the 
caterpillar,  could  divorce  himself  from  his  species  whether 
he  would  or  no.  The  individual  must  perform  the  special 
functions  of  the  genus. 

In  the  midst  of  these  contortions  of  her  mind  on  that 
perilous  and  so  insecure,  because  so  indefinitely  defined, 
border-line  between  sanity  and  chaos,  the  light  of  reason 
flickered  now  this  way,  now  that,  as  though  buffeted  about 
by  arid  breaths  out  of  her  spirit,  presently  to  flare  up  a 
little  brighter,  a  httle  more  securely,  for  it  was  suddenly 
nourished  with  the  fuel  of  a  concrete,  a  thoroughly  com- 
prehensible fact.  Delia  had  quitted  the  room.  That 
was  a  simple,  lucid,  definite  fragment  of  knowledge. 
There  was  refreshment  for  her  bewildered  senses  in  its 
freedom  from  complexity.  It  was  a  plain  fact  they  could 
understand.  Delia  had  quitted  the  room  ;  and  in  that 
act  was  a  point-blank  refusal  to  inhabit  the  same  place 
as  her  father.  It  cost  her  brain  no  expenditure  of  blood 
and  tears  to  acquire  the  key  to  its  meaning.  Such  a  preg- 
nant simplicity  braced  her  weak  wits.  Here  at  least 
was  a  matter  which  her  reason  could  apprehend  without 
incurring  the  danger  of  being  overthrown  in  the  endeavour. 

She  rose,  and  tottered  into  the  next  room,  where  Delia 
was.  It  caused  a  nerve  to  jump  in  her,  as  if  bared  suddenly 
to  the  air,  to  find  that  the  face  of  her  daughter  had  relapsed 
into  that  hardness  which  transcended  even  the  coldness 
of  passion    which  that  morning  had  struck  her  to  hei 

568 


AT   THE    COTTAGE    ON    THE    HILL 

knees.  Now,  however,  she  had  passed  beyond  those 
stages  of  an  individual  emotion,  of  which  fear  may  be  a 
phaso.  By  now  the  woman  and  the  creature  were  merged 
in  the  type.  The  labours  she  was  called  on  now  to  under- 
take were  as  remote  from  the  personal  as  those  of  Nature 
Herself.  All  that  she  felt,  all  that  she  saw,  all  that  she 
did,  had  lost  the  sanction  of  personahty,  the  impetus  of 
entity.  Action  had  been  induced  in  her  by  a  kind  of 
hypnotic  process,  although  the  august  power  that  dictated 
it  enabled  her  to  know  what  she  did,  even  if  it 
withheld  from  her  the  precise  motive  for  her  deeds.  Very 
dimly,  if  at  all,  did  she  apprehend  what  ends  were  about  to 
be  served,  or  in  the  name  of  what  universal  principle  they 
were  undertaken.  It  might  be  said  in  a  comparison  of  a 
thing  so  infinitely  little  with  the  immense,  that  she  acted 
with  the  unreasoning  rectitude  of  the  earth  in  its  yearly 
peregrination  round  the  sun.  She  was  one  with  the  stars 
in  their  courses.  She  took  her  place  with  the  miracles  of 
the  firmament  in  their  obeisance  to  the  awe  of  the  universe. 
With  space  and  time  she  was  one  ;  with  Instinct  she 
marched  hand  in  hand  to  obey  the  dictates  of  Natural 
Law. 

"  Delia,  I  hold  you  to  your  promise." 

"  You  must  'fulfil  the  condition  under  which  it  is  to  be 
entered  upon,"  said  Delia  coldly. 

"  Yes,  I  will." 

The  tone  had  laid  bare  a  second  nerve. 

She  asked  one  of  the  maids  to  procure  writing  materials 
for  her  use,  and  while  these  were  seeking  she  said  to  the 
other — 

"  I  want  you  to  go  back  to  the  house  as  quickly  as  you 
can,  tell  Reynolds  personally  to  see  that  a  good  horse  is  put 
in  the  cart,  and  you  are  to  return  with  him  here  at  once." 

By  the  time  the  messenger  had  gone  on  this  errand 
writing  materials  had  been  provided  for  her  use.  There- 
upon she  took  a  seat  at  the  table  and  wrote  these  words — 
"  In  the  name  of  your  wife  I  implore  you  to  return  here 
immediately  in  the  company  of  the  bearer. — Jane  Sophia 
Broke. 

As  she  was  in  the  act  of  addressing  and  sealing  the 
envelope     there     was    a     frank     and     almost     pitying 

569 


BROKE    OF   COVENDEN 

incredulity  to  be  seen  in  the  face  of  Delia.  In  the 
interval  of  rather  more  than  half  an  hour  which  elapsed 
before  the  man  came  with  the  cart,  the  intense  silence 
was  like  a  tomb.  In  that  period  not  a  word  passed  be- 
tween any  of  the  persons  assembled  in  the  two  small 
rooms  on  the  ground  floor.  That  strange  arrival  had 
oppressed  the  atmosphere  with  a  choking  density.  The 
knowledge  that  a  man  with  a  grey  face  was  sitting  in  that 
dark  corner  with  his  chin  ever  resting  upon  his  stick, 
arrested  their  voices,  seemed  to  enfeeble  their  limbs.  At 
last  there  was  a  sound  of  wheels  without  in  the  rain,  and 
a  little  afterwards  the  maid,  and  Reynolds  the  coachman, 
came  in  dripping  with  water  and  blinking  into  the  yellow 
glare  of  the  room. 

Mrs.  Broke  gave  the  letter  to  Reynolds. 

"  I  want  you  to  take  this  to  the  shop  of  Mr.  Porter,  the 
bookseller,  at  Cuttisham.  You  will  find  it  easily — it  is  a 
small  shop  in  North  Street,  a  few  doors  out  of  the  High 
Street.  You  are  to  ask  for  Mr.  Alfred  Porter,  and  you  will 
give  this  letter  personally  into  his  hands.  He  will  return 
with  you  here  to  this  cottage  ;  and,  Reynolds,  let  me 
urge  upon  you  that  the  matter  is  of  grave  importance." 

Reynolds,  bowing  to  these  instructions,  went  to  execute 
them.  As  he  did  so,  the  look  of  pity,  of  incredulity, 
was  seen  upon  the  face  of  Delia  for  the  second  time. 

Silence  descended  again.  Delia  remained  in  the  inner 
room  out  of  the  sight  of  her  father,  whose  own  posture 
had  not  changed.  Presently  Mrs.  Broke  ascended  the 
stairs  to  the  doctor  and  the  nurse  in  the  chamber  above  ; 
and  when  she  did  so.  Miss  .Sparrow,  not  daring  to  be  left 
alone,  deserted  the  utensils  and  the  baby-linen  and  fled 
to  Delia  for  the  solace  and  the  safety  of  companionship,  A 
little  afterwards  Mrs.  Broke  came  downstairs  again  and 
beckoned  to  the  old  woman,  but  did  not  speak.  She  then 
gathered  the  articles  in  front  of  the  sitting-room  fire  into 
an  armful,  and  carried  them  upstairs.  The  old  woman 
followed  meekly  and  whitely  in  her  wake. 


570 


CHAPTER  XLVIII 
The  Two  Voices 

IN  the  little  sitting-room  there  succeeded  another 
interval  devoid  of  sound,  devoid  of  incident.  Our 
hero  remained  in  the  corner  huddled  into  a  grey  mass, 
with  his  chin  still  propped  on  his  stick.  He  remained 
motionless  and  alone.  Not  once  had  he  changed  his 
posture.  His  eyes  were  wide,  but  appeared  to  be  glazed 
a  faded  violet  colour,  like  those  of  a  dog  that  is  blind. 
They  stared  like  eyes  of  glass  out  of  a  marble  ;  and  so  in- 
tensely that  a  total  darkness  encompassed  them.  The  sounds 
of  a  small  clock  ticking  on  the  mantel-piece  might  have 
been  heard  distinctly,  but  to  Broke  they  were  not  audible. 
They  were  merged  in  the  great  pulsations  of  his  heart. 
Everything  was  very  still  and  vague.  There  were  occa- 
sional fierce  gushes  of  rain  driven  by  the  wind  against 
the  window  panes  of  the  cottage.  He  mistook  them  for 
waves  of  blood  breaking  over  the  walls  of  his  mind. 
Outside,  in  the  abyss  of  the  winter  evening,  there  was  not 
a  star.  There  was  nothing,  not  so  much  as  a  dark  pool 
of  water  or  the  shadow  of  a  gaunt  tree,  by  which  time  and 
place  could  be  identified.  The  night  was  a  void,  but  one 
hardly  so  great  as  that  of  the  spirit  of  the  man  who  sat  in 
the  corner  of  the  bright  and  small  room  with  his  chin  on 
his  stick.  Time  and  place  had  even  less  of  embodiment 
in  him.  He  might  be  on  earth,  a  withered  oak  tree,  a 
fallen  leaf,  a  blade  of  grass  bruised  to  death  by  the  hand 
of  winter  ;  or  he  might  be  in  space,  a  disembodied  spirit 
wafted  to  Elysium  along  the  clouds  of  eternity.    There 

571 


BROKE    OF    COVENDEN 

was  not  a  sliade  of  recognition  remaining  to  him  that  he 
could  surrender  to  his  own  sense  of  entity.  He  had  no 
famihar  evidence  of  hfe,  hardly  of  being.  He  was  a  nebu- 
lous mechanism,  whose  brain  was  a  sea,  whose  clay  was 
a  fire  ;  an  impotent  mechanism  compounded  mysteriously, 
irrelevantly,  of  the  two  prime  elements,  wrought  with 
mystery  equal  and  irrelevance  no  less,  into  a  crude  symbol 
or  body  whose  end  and  beginning  was  darkness  and 
matter.  Beyond  that  elemental  knowledge  there  Wcis 
nothing  to  know. 

Suddenly  a  far-off  noise  was  heard  to  tintinnabulate 
faintly  in  some  remote  purlieu  of  his  spirit.  It  sur- 
mounted the  ticking  of  the  clock,  it  surmounted  the  great 
pulsations  of  his  heart,  it  surmounted  the  spatter  of  the 
rain  against  the  windows  and  the  sounds  of  the  blood 
breaking  over  the  walls  of  his  mind.  It  was  a  wail,  as 
of  a  wind  drawn  painfully  fine,  a  wind  crooning  away 
from  the  very  outer  verge  of  eternity.  It  was  as  faint 
as  if  it  had  crept  many  thousands  of  miles  across  the 
sterile  wastes  of  space.  It  rose  and  fell,  but  repetition 
did  not  make  it  more  intimate.  It  was  unreal,  eerie, 
and  monotonous  ;  it  made  an  effect  of  unreason  in  a 
condition  of  exquisite  sanity.  As  this  faint  voice  con- 
tinued to  issue  from  the  back  of  the  infinite,  yet  came  no 
nearer  into  human  ken,  it  acquired  a  certain  quality. 
Its  reason  to  be  grew  no  more  determinate,  yet  it  con- 
ferred supernatural  powers.  Some  grotesque  idea  of 
being,  of  self-recognition  sprang  directly  out  of  the 
weirdness  of  it.  Time  and  space  became  possible  ;  a 
little  afterwards  external  things  were  shadowed  forth. 
A  dull  disc  of  yellow  appeared  in  front  of  his  eyes.  At 
first  he  thought  it  was  the  moon,  but  it  seemed  too  bright ; 
and  then  the  sun,  but  it  did  not  seem  bright  enough. 
He  then  awoke  with  a  start  to  the  fact  that  it  was  a  lamp 
on  a  table.  He  grasped  the  knowledge  that  he  was 
sitting  in  a  room.  Soon  it  became  apparent  that 
the  illusion  he  had  experienced  of  a  disembodied  spirit 
reclining  upon  a  cloud  had  been  produced  by  his  chin 
resting  upon  his  stick. 

It  was  now  that  an  element  of  frank  and  broad  farce 
was  introduced  into  his  frantic  endeavour  to  wrest  out 

572 


THE   TWO   VOICES 

of  the  inner  tribunal  a  re-recognition  of  his  own  entity. 
The  thin  voice  that  had  at  first  rendered  it  possible  had 
been  weird  and  eerie,  and  not  unsolemn  i  such  was  its 
suggestion  of  having  journeyed  long  through  time  and 
travelled  far.  But  here  there  started  up  a  competing 
voice  that  was  neither  weird  nor  solemn.  It  was  ridicu- 
lous. It  would  not  be  tolerated  in  a  harlequinade.  It 
was  the  lusty  crying  of  a  child. 

At  such  a  moment  a  voice  of  that  kind  was  indescrib- 
ably ludicrous.  That  perfectly  robust,  that  absolutely 
common  and  lucid  sound  in  conjunction  with  the  thin 
voice  right  away  from  the  outer  verge  of  eternity  was 
really  too  incongruous  for  human  reason  to  accept. 
It  was  altogether  beyond  bathos,  it  was  mockery.  It 
was  a  damnable  paradox  invented  by  a  devil  to  affront 
a  logical  and  delicate  human  ear.  It  was  like  some  topsy- 
turvy conceit  in  a  nightmare.  Reason  shied  at  it  with 
a  positive  sense  of  affront.  However,  no  protest  from 
that  source  could  allay  the  incongruous  duet.  The  wail 
still  rose  and  fell,  and  crooned  in  mid-air  over  the  fields 
of  eternity.  The  infant  still  cried  lustily  from  some  station 
more  adjacent  to  his  outraged  ears.  Under  this  dis- 
tressing sense  of  the  ridiculous,  our  hero  made  a  more 
frantic  effort  to  re-capture  his  wits.  He  was  conscious 
of  their  effort  to  pass  the  yellow  disc  of  the  lamplight, 
as  is  a  sleeper  who  struggles  to  awake  in  the  midst  of 
foul  dreams.  Presently  he  could  make  out  his  wife 
beyond  it,  seated  in  shadow.  She  had  a  bundle  in  her 
arms. 

The  sight  of  her,  however,  did  nothing  to  assuage  his 
torment.  The  desperate  duet  went  on.  It  grew  more 
intolerable  as  it  proceeded.  One  noise,  certainly  the 
more  human,  the  more  natural,  proceeded  from  the 
bundle  his  wife  held  in  her  arms.  It  was  shrill,  lusty, 
disconcerting,  but  at  least  it  was  of  a  reasonable  and 
consecutive  character.  But  why  it  should  pit  itself 
against  the  other  sound  he  did  not  know.  The  effect 
of  them  in  chorus  was  not  to  be  borne.  He  must  stuff 
his  ears.  The  endurance  of  no  human  person  could 
sanction  such  an  incongruity.  If  that  menace  to  nature 
went     on    much     longer    he    felt     he    must     go    mad. 

573 


BROKE   OF   COVENDEN 

One  without  the  other  was  monstrous ;  blended  and  in 
chorus  they  made  an  effect  horrible  beyond  belief. 

Do  what  he  would,  however,  the  two  voices  continued 
to  make  his  reason  totter.  There  was  something  dis- 
gusting in  that  high  and  thin  wail  that  had  struck  the 
first  effect  of  unreason  in  him,  which  yet  so  paradoxi- 
cally had  summoned  him  back  to  sanity.  It  was  not  to 
be  compared  to  anything  in  earth  or  heaven.  It  had 
an  analogy  to  winds  far  off,  rippling  the  branches  of  the 
eerie  forests  of  the  moon.  It  was  like  a  mild  Uttle  voice 
hanging  in  mid  air,  a  dryad  mourning.  Now  and  then 
the  note  had  something  in  common  with  the  cry  of  an 
animal.  And  yet  in  reality  it  could  not  have  been  iden- 
tified by  any  of  these  too  definite  descriptions.  For  the 
prevailing  quality  in  it  was  something  metallic,  some- 
thing mechanical,  that  invested  the  very  centre  of  these 
cadences :  an  ordered  recurrence,  a  regulated  coming 
and  going,  a  rising  and  falling,  an  incredibly  even 
repetition  of  its  timbre  that  had  nothing  in  common 
with  the  human,  the  divine,  the  natural,  nor  the  super- 
natural, so  far  as  the  senses  of  man  had  been  evolved 
to  apprehend  them. 

Broke's  bleeding  nerves  recoiled  from  it  in  horror  again 
and  again. 

"  It  is  like  a  damned  machine  !  "  they  seemed  to  com- 
plain to  one  another.     "  It  is  like  a  damned  machine  1  " 


574 


CHAPTER  XLIX 
The  Survival  of  the  Fittest :  the  Curtain  falls 

THAT  indeed  was  the  only  thing  it  could  be  said 
to  resemble.  It  was  a  piece  of  diabolical  clock- 
work. The  winds  of  the  night  escaping  out  of  chaos 
to  complain  among  willows  was  not  more  eerie.  It 
was  an  elaborate  yet  brutal  sequence  of  discords,  a  sym- 
phony of  music  as  they  might  understand  it  in  hell.  All 
the  time  it  continued  to  come  and  go,  to  occur  and  recur 
with  a  precision  and  an  equal  volume  of  sound  that  was 
frightful  in  its  regularity.  But  remote  as  it  Wcis  it  could 
compete  with  the  most  adjacent,  the  most  insistent  of 
noises.  The  bundle  in  his  wife's  arms  emitted  high 
and  natural  infant  cries ;  but  near  and  clear  as  they 
were  they  could  not  drown  those  weaker  sounds  that 
were  so  far  away. 

The  duet  between  the  two  voices  went  on  and  on. 
Broke  had  again  ceased  to  be  conscious  of  anything,  save 
the  diabolical  fashion  of  their  blending.  It  grew  higher 
and  higher ;  it  rose  more  imperious ;  but  the  thinner 
note  was  ever  dominant.  After  a  time  the  nearer  one 
grew  less.  The  human  cries  from  the  bundle  subsided 
into  a  troubled  exhaustion.  Languorous  sobs  were 
shaken  among  and  dispersed  in  the  strident  outcry ; 
gradually  it  grew  intermittent ;  presently  it  ceased. 
The  unholy  wail  suspended  in  the  firmament  had  nothing 
then  to  dispute  its  ascendency.  Again  he  had  the 
desire  to  crush  his  hands  into  his  quaking  ears.  His 
nerves  were  bleeding  to  death.  The  trick  that  the 
arch-fiend  had  put  upon  him  was  sending  him  out  of  his 

575 


BROKE    OF    COVENDEN 

mind.  He  could  hardly  sit  in  his  chair.  At  last  he  could 
endure  it  no  more.  He  jerked  up  his  head  in  the  startled 
manner  of  a  stag  drinking  at  a  pool  when  it  first  hears 
the  sound  of  dogs. 

"  What  is  that  noise  ?  "  he  demanded  imperiously^ 

"  That  is  the  mother." 

The  reply  caused  a  faint  streak  of  knowledge  to  break 
over  his  face.  His  hands  froze  tighter  to  the  knob  of 
his  stick,  and  on  it  he  settled  his  chin  more  firmly.  The 
haggard  sweat  poured  down  his  cheeks  in  a  stream. 

The  nurse  came  down  the  stairs  softly.  Mrs.  Broke 
gave  the  stupefied  bundle  of  life  into  her  arms.  As  she 
did  so  the  nurse  pulled  down  the  comer  of  her  lips  dole- 
fully. 

"  Poor  young  lady !  "  she  whispered  hoarsely. 

"  Hush  !  "  said  Mrs.  Broke. 

Tears  gathered  one  at  a  time  in  the  hardened  eyes  of 
the  nurse. 

At  this  moment  the  sounds  of  wheels  were  again  heard 
outside  in  the  rain.  Mrs.  Broke  raised  her  head  and 
stood  erect.  Her  form  was  strung  as  tense  as  an  arrow 
taut  on  the  string.  Her  hstening  ears  could  detect, 
even  through  the  tumult  of  the  night,  the  creakings  of  a 
vehicle  as  it  drew  up  at  the  gate  of  the  little  garden.  She 
strained  to  catch  a  footfall  on  the  gravel  path.  The  old 
faintly  ironical  smile  flitted  round  her  tight  lips  for  an 
instant,  but  in  the  next  her  face  had  become  resolved 
into  much  the  same  condition  as  that  of  Broke's.  Under 
the  lamp  the  sweat  shone  livid.  She  moved  to  the  door 
and  opened  it.  A  spatter  of  rain  simmered  upon  her 
face  suddenly  as  in  the  case  of  a  few  hours  before,  but  the 
engines  of  her  heart  no  longer  required  it  for  refreshment. 
There  was  a  supreme  exaltation  in  her.  She  stood  bare- 
headed to  shade  with  her  hand  the  rain  and  the  gross 
darkness  from  her  eyes  and  peered  out  into  the  storm  to 
discern  the  outlines  of  the  form  she  had  come  to  seek. 

She  called  the  man's  name  softly,  but  there  came  no 
response.  It  was  too  dark  to  make  out  what  was  at  the 
bottom  of  the  garden.  There  was  not  a  sound  except  the  pat- 
ter of  the  rain  and  the  mournful  noise  of  the  wind  sobbing 
in  the  upper  branches  of  the  wood  behind  and  above  tlie 

576 


SURVIVAL   OF   THE   FITTEST 

cottage.  She  continued  to  stand  in  a  posture  of  expect- 
ancy, but  no  form  appeared  before  her  on  the  garden  path. 
She  called  the  man's  name,  but  she  stood  alone.  Unques- 
tionably she  had  heard  the  sound  of  wheels.  That  blunt 
fact  dominated  her  like  a  passion  as  she  stood  looking  out 
upon  the  void.  Her  being  could  admit  no  other.  She 
continued  to  stand  with  the  rain  beating  upon  her  piti- 
lessly. She  did  not  quail  before  it,  nor  when  the  wind 
cast  it  more  fiercely  in  her  teeth,  or  struck  her  bosom, 
did  she  recoil  or  gasp  for  breath.  Her  eyes  began  to 
ache  with  the  darkness.  And  yet  she  Wcis  as  sure  she 
had  heard  the  sound  of  wheels  as  that  the  man  she  had 
sent  for  would  appear. 

At  last  the  wind  carried  towards  her  the  sound  of  the 
gravel  crunching.  A  foot  had  fallen  on  it.  Almost 
directly  a  vague  mass  was  evolved  out  of  the  night  and 
the  flood.  It  climbed  up  the  path  to  confront  the  woman 
on  the  threshold.  It  was  a  man  with  his  great  coat 
turned  up  to  his  ears,  and  the  peak  of  his  cap  pulled 
dowTi  over  his  face  until  only  the  tips  of  his  chin  and  nose 
were  to  be  seen.  He  was  as  gaunt  as  a  drenched  sparrow, 
the  water  dripping  from  his  shoulders. 

"  I  knew  you  would  come,"  the  woman  breathed  softly. 

*'  I  couldn't  find  the  gate  in  the  darkness.  And  the 
rain  and  wind  are  horrible." 

She  hastened  to  lead  him  in  and  close  the  door,  for 
every  moment  the  wind  was  threatening  to  extinguish 
the  lamp  on  the  table.  As  the  man  moved  into  the  light, 
and  stood  blinking  and  wiping  his  feet  on  the  mat,  he 
said — 

"  I  am  afraid  I  am  bringing  mud  and  wet  into  this 
cosy  room." 

He  took  off  his  cap,  and  his  eyes  fell  on  the  nurse,  who 
was  rocking  the  infant  in  her  arms,  with  an  occasional 
tear  dripping  from  her  eyes  on  to  the  blanket  that  con- 
tained it. 

Mrs.  Broke  conducted  him  past  her  to  where  Delia 
was  seated  in  the  room  adjoining.  In  his  progress  he 
did  not  appear  to  notice  that  a  grey  huddle  of  a  man 
was  in  the  farthest  corner  of  the  room  through  which 
he  passed. 

577  00 


BROKE    OF    COVENDEN 

Upon  his  entrance  Delia  rose. 

The  man  did  not  look  at  her. 

Mrs.  Broke  closed  the  door  that  conimunicated  with 
the  other  room. 

"  You  must  take  off  your  wet  overcoat,"  she  said. 

"  Thank  you,  I  will." 

DeUa  helped  him  to  remove  it.  She  was  very  cold, 
her  face  was  the  colour  of  snow.  During  the  moment  in 
which  she  tendered  her  aid  it  changed  to  scarlet,  and  then 
to  snow  again.  An  intense  bewilderment  was  making 
her  eyes  grow  dark.  The  man  did  not  look  at  her  once, 
although  there  was  an  instant  in  which  he  took  her 
arm  in  a  grip  that  had  a  slightly  authoritative  caress  in  it. 

"  Won't  you  sit  down  ?  "  said  Mrs.  Broke. 

"  No,  thank  you  ;  I  think  not." 

She  found  that  his  voice  and  the  measure  of  his  self- 
effacement  were  making  her  strong.  They  had  seemed  to 
banish  any  suggestion  of  abnormality  in  their  meeting. 

"  I  must  first  make  the  purpose  clear  for  which  I  sent 
for  you  this  evening.  But  before  I  do  so,  I  render  you 
my  thanks  for  obeying  the  summons.  I  content  myself 
with  saying  that  had  I  not  come  to  form  the  highest 
estimate  of  your  nature  that  one  person  can  form  of  an- 
other's, I  could  not  have  issued  it.  I  could  not  have 
dared." 

The  man  bent  his  face  a  Httle.  A  slight  look  of  pain 
showed  upon  it. 

"  My  object  in  summoning  you  to-night  is  that  you  may 
undertake  the  task  of  reconciling  a  father  and  daughter. 
It  is  b}^  you  alone  that  it  can  be  done.  The  grave  crime 
that  was  committed  against  you,  your  wife  finds  impos- 
sible to  forgive.  But  at  the  entreaty  of  her  mother, 
made  upon  her  knees,  she  has  consented  to  make  your 
perfect  magnanimity  the  sole  condition  of  her  forgive- 
ness of  the  author  of  it.  You  have  only  to  withhold  it ; 
you  have  only  to  insert  one  reservation  in  its  absolute 
fulness  and  they  can  never  be  reconciled.  There  is  no 
power  in  the  world  that  can  reconcile  them  if  you  elect 
to  nurse  for  an  instant  one  spark  of  your  resentment. 
If  you  are  incapable  of  this  act  of  fortitude  I  shall  not 
respect   you  less  ;  if    the   triumph  is  yours  of  achieving 

57^ 


SURVIVAL   OF   THE    FITTEST 

it,  I  can  only  marvel  at  you  more.  Perhaps  I  have  no 
right  to  ask  it ;  perhaps  it  is  more  than  one  person  should 
ask  of  another.  But  as  a  wife  and  a  mother  I  ask  it, 
and  venture  to  do  so  because  all  requests  preferred  from 
those  sources  are  privileged.  I  ask  it  in  the  name  of 
the  children  that  may  one  day  be  yours.  As  an  old  and 
poor  woman  who  has  borne  many,  I  ask  it  on  my  knees." 

In  this  appeal  there  was  a  singular  simpleness,  an  abase- 
ment which  was  so  complete  that  it  encroached  on  the 
primitive  dignity  of  nature.  Without  venturing  to  look 
at  the  countenance  of  him  to  whom  it  was  made,  the  un- 
happy woman  covered  her  face  with  her  hands.  There 
was  an  instant  of  silence,  in  which  she  seemed  to  shrink 
into  herself,  in  which  her  heaving  sides  seemed  to  contract. 

In  the  next  the  man  had  laid  his  hand  on  her  shoulder 
with  a  gentleness  that  was  extraordinary. 

"  Yes,  yes,  I  think  I  see." 

"  You  will  lead  her  to  her  father  literally,  in  your  own 
person." 

"  As  you  wish." 

A  sUghtly  bleal^  smile  twisted  his  face. 

The  woman  was  heard  to  breathe  heavily. 

"  A  man.    I  hear  the  voice  of  a  man.    A  man  speaks  !  ** 

As  she  uttered  these  irrelevant  words  she  raised  his 
hand  in  both  her  own,  and  it  felt  the  strange  fervour  of 
her  lips.     A  single  tear  out  of  her  eyes  fell  upon  it. 

In  the  next  moment  she  had  gone  back  to  the  other 
room.  Broke  still  kept  the  attitude  [he  had  occupied 
ever  since  he  had  come  there.  The  sweat  was  still  running 
down  his  face  in  a  stream.  To  the  grey  of  his  cheeks 
had  succeeded  the  pallor  of  death.  The  nurse  sat  at 
the  side  of  the  fire  rocking  the  quiescent  child  in  her  arms. 
The  wail  upstairs  had  ceased.  The  doctor  was  seen 
descending  the  stairs.  When  he  reached  the  room  his 
rough  face  was  observed  to  be  very  grave  and  com* 
posed.    He  came  softly  to  the  side  of  Mrs.  Broke. 

"  All  is  over,"  he  said  in  her  ear. 

Mrs.  Broke  held  her  heart. 

The  doctor  turned  to  the  infant  sleeping  in  the  arms 
of  the  nurse.  He  pulled  the  blanket  aside  and  favoured 
it  with  a  cursory  professional  glance. 

579 


BROKE   OF   COVENDEN 

"  A  fine  boy,"  he  said. 

His  comment  awoke  no  echo  of  response  in  the  stony 
woman  shivering  by  his  side.  His  eyes  went  across  the 
table  to  where  Broke  huddled  with  his  chin  resting  on 
his  stick. 

"  Ha  !  there  is  the  grandfather  !    Does  he  know  ?  ** 

"  Tell  him,"  said  the  unhappy  woman. 

The  doctor  turned  towards  our  hero. 

"  A  fine  boy,  Mr.  Broke,"  he  said  with  a  native  hearti- 
ness in  his  voice. 

The  direct  manner  of  this  address  did  something  to  hft 
our  hero  from  his  stupor.  For  the  first  time  he  took 
his  head  out  of  his  hands,  and  in  the  act  the  stick  fell 
with  a  clatter  to  the  ground. 

"  A  fine  boy,"  repeated  the  doctor  in  his  bluff  voice. 

"  Eh  ?  "  said  Broke. 

He  spoke  in  hoarse  bewilderment.  There  seemed  to  be 
some  kind  of  significance  in  the  words  of  the  doctor,  but 
he  knew  not  what. 

"  A  fine  boy,"  said  the  doctor  yet  again,  and  a  little 
proudly.  "  It  is  a  strange  providence  that  watches 
over  you  old  families,  don't  you  think  ?  " 

No  glimmer  of  comprehension  appeared  in  the  stark 
eyes  of  the  grandfather.  They  were  stretched  dully 
upon  the  lamp.     The  sweat  still  poured  down  his  face. 

"  The  noise,"  he  was  heard  to  mutter.  "  The  noise. 
Why  has  it  stopped  ?  " 

"  We  couldn't  save  her." 

"  Hey  !  "  said  Broke.  He  was  seen  to  place  a  hand 
behind  his  ear  and  to  bend  it  forward  in  the  feebly 
querulous  manner  of  a  very  aged  man  who  is  deaf. 

The  doctor  repeated  his  phrase. 

"  I  don't  understand,"  said  Broke  feebly.  *'  Why — 
what  ?     I — I  want  to  know  about  that   noise." 

"  I  cannot  recall  a  more  painful  or  difficult  case  in 
my  experience.  The  premonition  she  had  taken  of  her 
husband's  death  proved  too  much  for  us.  It  gave  us  no 
chance." 

A  vague  comprehension  was  seen  to  creep  into  the  grey 
face  of  the  grandfather.  His  trunk  was  suddenly  shaken 
and  convulsed.     His   wife   lifted   the   bundle  out  of  the 

580 


SURVIVAL   OF   THE    FITTEST 

arms  of  the  nurse.  She  bore  it  to  his  side.  Mutely  he 
put  up  his  piteous  face  to  hers. 

"  Edmund,"  she  said,  calling  him  by  his  name. 

The  sound  of  the  familiar  calm  voice  was  a  never-failing 
source  of  strength  and  consolation  to  him.  It  was  so 
now.  Something  of  the  stupor  was  banished  from  his 
spirit,  something  of  the  palsy  was  taken  from  his  blood. 
He  extended  both  arms  towards  his  wife  with  the 
eagerness  of  one  who  thirsts.  She  tucked  the  sleeping 
fragment  of  life  firmly  within  them.  He  gathered  it 
slowly  on  to  his  irresolute  knees. 

She  then  withdrew  with  great  swiftness  to  the  room 
adjoining. 

"  Now !  "  she  breathed  from  the  threshold. 

They  were  both  sitting  side  by  side  at  the  table,  but 
at  the  summons  the  man  rose  to  his  feet  immediately. 
Deha  followed  his  action  with  dumb,  terrified,  disbeUeving 
eyes. 

"  Come,  child." 

He  was  seen  to  raise  her  softly  by  the  arm.  Taking 
her  then  by  the  hand  he  led  the  way  into  the  other  room. 
She  yielded  to  him  meekly  but  with  terror  and  incre- 
dulity ever  increasing  in  her  face.  They  discovered  Broke 
in  the  corner  with  a  shapeless  mass  of  blanket  on  his 
knee.  His  face  was  hardly  recognisable,  it  was  so  wet 
and  grey.  He  hfted  it  at  the  approach  of  his  daughter 
and  her  husband.  He  had  expected  to  see  his  wife.  A 
look  of  bewilderment,  similar  to  that  in  the  eyes  of  his 
daughter,  came  upon  him  for  an  instant,  but  it  passed 
almost  at  once.  It  was  succeeded  by  an  expression  that 
was  incomprehensible,  that  had  no  meaning.  His 
mouth  grew  loose  and  weak.  His  right  arm  tightened 
about  the  precious  burden  it  encompassed.  Suddenly 
his  left  was  seen  to  be  extended.  At  the  same  instant 
a  harrowing  agony  seemed  to  spread  over  and  shatter  his 
limbs. 

Without  hesitation  the  man  led  Delia  by  the  hand 
directly  to  the  place  where  our  hero's  were  outstretched 
to  accept  her.  But  even  when  conducted  there,  and  she 
was  released  from  his  grasp,  the  power  was  not  in  her  to 
yield  forth  her  hand  to  receive   that  other.      She  stood 


BROKE    OF   COVENDEN 

before  it  mute.  Her  companion  seized  her  hand  again, 
and  placed  the  limp  thing  in  that  which  was  yet  out- 
stretched to  take  it.  A  curious  weakness  of  its  pressure 
caused  her  to  submit.  Her  companion  stepped  back 
quickly  into  the  room  from  which  he  had  come  and 
closed  the  door,  leaving  Mrs.  Broke  alone  to  stand  and 
gaze  from  her  station  at  the  opposite  side  of  the  table 
with  eyes  that  were  going  blind. 

Upstairs  sat  the  old  woman  by  the  side  of  the  bed, 
desolate  and  without  tears,  nursing  the  dead  hand  of 
her  niece.  Downstairs  sat  our  hero  clasping  his  man- 
child  with  one  arm,  with  the  other  his  daughter.  The 
haggard  sweat  poured  down  his  face  unceasingly. 


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